Ukrainians will have to work until the age of 70–75, an economist said, naming the key condition

Ukrainians need to prepare for the fact that they may have to work much longer than they do now — possibly until the age of 70 to 75. The main condition without which this would be impossible is the population’s health.

This was stated on Channel 5 by Iryna Ipolitova, a senior researcher at the Center for Economic Strategy.

According to the researcher, raising the retirement age is becoming inevitable because of a combination of factors: mass migration of the working-age population, a labor shortage of 2 to 2.5 million people, and an extremely low birth rate, which has fallen even further because of the full-scale invasion.

“When people who are now 45 to 50 years old begin to retire, there simply will be no one to replace them,” Ipolitova explained.

She emphasized that the solidarity-based pension system depends on contributions from those who are working, and if their number declines sharply, there will be no money to pay pensions.

The researcher named health as the key condition for being able to work at such an age.

“If we are talking about working after 70, we must understand that only healthy people can work,” she noted.

The state has already begun moving in this direction — in particular, a program of free medical checkups for people aged 40 and older has been launched.