Chart love: why work over the age of 70?

Recently, I have come across some interesting statistics, stating that an increasing amount of Hungarians work over the age of 70. Sadly, the reason is not the overwhelming love for what they do, but the lack of financial stability.

In the above chart you see the change in employment in dark blue and the change in population in red between 2009 and 2022. Retirement age was raised in this period, hence the dramatic growth in the 60-64 age group. People over 65 could theoretically retire, but increasingly stay active to keep earning.

However, in several sectors it is quite obvious that we also don’t have enough young professionals and the services would simply collaps if everyone over retirement age would suddenly stop working.

One such sector is public education. This chart was not done by me, but shows the trend beautifully.

And the other is healthcare. In dark blue we see all practising doctors over 70. Green ale male, yellow are female professionals.