The average retirement age in the Netherlands has gone up ‘spectacularly’ since 2006 and is now around 63, home affairs minister Henk Kamp has told MPs.

‘If we continue at this pace, it will be 66 by 2020,’ the minister said during a debate on pension reform. The government plans to increase the state retirement age to 66 that year.
Successive governments have taken steps to try to discourage people from stopping work before they reach 65. This is due to the large number of early retirement schemes introduced in the 1980s in an effort to reduce youth unemployment.