EU pensions amount to 12.9% of GDP in 2021

In 2021, approximately €1 882 billion was spent on pensions across EU countries, or 12.9% of the total gross domestic product (GDP). Although the total pension expenditure increased by 2.8% compared with 2020, its ratio to GDP was 0.7 percentage points lower than in 2020 when it stood at 13.6%.

The relative importance of expenditure on pensions varied considerably among the EU countries in 2021. This ratio peaked in Greece at 16.4% of GDP, followed by Italy (16.3%), Austria (15.0%) and France (14.9%). 

At the other end of the range, the lowest ratios were observed in Ireland (4.5% of GDP), Malta (6.4%), Hungary (7.0%) and Lithuania (7.1%).

Source dataset: spr_exp_pens

In 2021, 27.2% of the EU population were pension beneficiaries. When looking at the different pension categories, pensions relating to old age were by far the largest category in the EU, accounting for 79.9% of all pension expenditure and 80.3% of beneficiaries. Survivors’ pensions were the second largest category, accounting for 12.0% of expenditure and 21.3% of beneficiaries, followed by disability pensions (7.9% of expenditure and 12.2% of beneficiaries) and unemployment pensions (0.2% of expenditure and 0.1% of beneficiaries).