How Many Years Europeans Spend Working On Average

Map created by europe.magazine

The map above shows how many years Europeans can expect to be in work from age 15. And it varies really widely from a high of 45.7 years in Iceland, to a low of 29.9 years in Türkiye.

The data comes from Eurostat for 2023. They note that:

The indicator ‘expected average duration of working life’ measures the expected number of years that a person, at the current age of 15 years, is expected to remain in the labour force throughout their life. It is estimated using the life expectancy and the share of employed and unemployed people in the population for each age.

The average for the EU as a whole is 36.9 years. And to put that into perspective the UK number in 2019 was 39.4 years. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find definitive data for the US but this 2012 article suggests it might be as high as 48 years.

More from Eurostat:

For men, the expected duration of working life was on average 39.0 years in the EU, with the longest durations recorded in the Netherlands (45.7 years), Sweden (44.1 years), Denmark and Ireland (both 42.8 years), and the shortest in Croatia (35.4), Bulgaria and Romania (both 35.6 years).  

For women, the average duration of working life in the EU was 34.7 years, with the longest durations recorded in Sweden (41.9 years), followed by the Netherlands and Estonia (both 41.5 years), with the shortest in Italy (28.3 years), Romania (28.5 years) and Greece (30.6 years). 

Here is the full ranking of countries from longest to shorter working life:

1. Iceland – 45.7
2. Netherlands – 43.7
3. Sweden – 43.1
4. Switzerland – 42.7
5. Denmark – 41.3
6. Norway – 41.1
7. Estonia – 40.8
8. Ireland – 40.0
9. Finland – 39.9
10. Germany – 39.6
11. Portugal – 39.1
12. Cyprus – 39.0
13. Austria – 38.6
14. Malta – 38.4
15. Lithuania – 37.8
16. Euro area – 20 countries (from 2023) – 37.1
17. Czechia – 37.1
18. Latvia – 37.0
19. Hungary – 37.0
20. European Union – 27 countries (from 2020) – 36.9
21. France – 36.8
22. Slovenia – 36.6
23. Spain – 36.3
24. Slovakia – 35.7
25. Luxembourg – 35.2
26. Poland – 35.2
27. Serbia – 34.8
28. Belgium – 34.7
29. Bulgaria – 34.5
30. Greece – 34.2
31. Croatia – 34.0
32. Italy – 32.9
33. Romania – 32.2
34. Türkiye – 29.9