Immigrant pension figures shock Denmark

Published 20 November 2024 at 11.58

Foreign. New Danish figures show that immigrants from the third world are very strongly overrepresented in the statistics for early retirement, reports Berlingske. It causes a stir.

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When they arrived, they were called “pension saviors” by the politicians and journalists – but the figures from Denmark give a completely different picture of the situation .

Among Iraqi immigrants between the ages of 50 and 67, a whopping 65.9 percent are early retirees. The countries of origin Afghanistan and Lebanon follow closely behind, where over 50 percent in the same age group receive early retirement.

Even immigrants from the former Yugoslavia stand out (52.4 percent).

– The figures are striking. How have we ended up in a situation where two out of three with an Iraqi background are early retired when they are over 50 years old? says Erik Simonsen, deputy director at Dansk Arbejdsgiverforening, to Berlingske.

For the entire Danish population in this age group, the figure is significantly lower – at 11 percent.

Even among the able-bodied aged 18 to age 67, the differences are noticeable: 29.2 percent of Iraqi immigrants are early retirees, compared to 6.6 percent of the entire population.