Did you think that the amount of your retirement depended only on your contribution and wages? Think again: between the most generous and least favored department in France, the gap exceeds 900 euros monthly!
For most people, retirement represents a crucial stage in life, but not all future retirees are housed in the same brand. According to the 2025 edition of the DREES (Directorate of Research, Studies, Evaluation and Statistics) on “Retirees and Pensions”, a pensioner receives on average 1,666 euros gross per month, but this sum hides enormous disparities. Women, for example, affect a pension less than 38 % to that of men, a direct consequence of wage gaps and careers often interrupted. Between a former Parisian executive and an employee who worked part -time in the province, the gap can also represent several thousand euros per month. With 17.2 million retirees in France, it affects millions of people.
Unfortunately, these differences do not stop there: your place of residence also influences the amount of your retirement. In rural departments, where wages have always been more modest, pensions reflect this economic reality. Former farmers, craftsmen or business employees of these territories are found with amounts much lower than the national average. In France, this geographic injustice is particularly hitting two departments: in mainland France, Cantal displays the lowest pension with only 1,297 euros monthly, while in overseas, the meeting closes the march with 1,189 euros per month.
Conversely, other territories are doing well. Paris comes widely in the lead with 2,131 euros of average pension, almost twice as much as in Cantal. The Hauts-de-Seine follow with 2,081 euros, confirming that the Paris region concentrates the most comfortable pensions. This difference is explained by higher wage decades in these dynamic urban areas. The fact remains that despite these differences, good news in the last statistics of the DREES: French retirees are out of the way overall than the rest of the population, with a poverty rate lower by 4.4 points. A meager comfort when you know that the retirement age has already backed over more than two years since 2010!
