Summary

• The population is aging in high income countries in the OECD, including Canada.
• Of the 22 high-income OECD countries apart from Canada, 16 have either already increased the age of eligibility for public retirement programs to above age 65 or are in the process of doing so.
• Five countries are indexing their age of eligibility to life expectancy, meaning that the retirement age will automatically adjust upward if life expectancy increases.
• There is a clear trend across high-income countries towards increasing eligibility ages for retirement benefits.
• Once all the currently planned reforms of the high-income OECD countries are fully implemented, Canada’s 65-year-old age of eligibility will put it in a tie for having the lowest retirement age of the high-income countries.
• In 2015, Canada’s government reversed a 2012 reform that would have increased the age of eligibility for Old Age Security and the Guaranteed Income Supplement to 67 by 2029. The federal government estimates that this reversal will cost $10.4 billion in 2030.