On 3 March 2024, Swiss voters rejected the Pensions Initiative to increase the retirement age.
In brief
Current situation
Old-Age and Survivors' Insurance (OASI) pensions are securely funded for the coming years. Two reforms in the last five years have helped significantly to bring this about. Salary contributions and VAT have been increased and the retirement age for women has been raised to 65. This mix of increased income and lower expenditure will stabilise OASI finances until around 2030. In the medium term, however, OASI faces major financial challenges. Firstly, the number of pensioners is increasing faster than the number of workers who pay into the OASI scheme. Secondly, pensions will have to be paid out for longer as life expectancy increases.
The initiative
The Pensions Initiative aims to secure the long-term funding of OASI by raising the retirement age. (Another initiative is calling for a 13th OASI payment. You can read about that here.) It is calling for the retirement age for women and men to be gradually increased to 66 by 2033. The retirement age would then be linked to average life expectancy: the retirement age would be increased automatically if life expectancy increases – not one-to-one, but only by 80 per cent of the increase in life expectancy and in steps of no more than two months per year. If the initiative is accepted, this would relieve the burden on OASI finances; raising the retirement age to 66 would probably reduce OASI expenditure by around CHF 2 billion. The automatic adjustment of the retirement age in line with rising life expectancy would also ease the burden on OASI.
Last modification 03.03.2024
