Reasons why retirees want to return to work

Returning to work when you are retired is not always a wish. As an INSEE study shows, it can be primarily a financial necessity.

Capital Video: These French people forced to return to work once they retire

There are more than one in ten of them. This is the proportion of new retirees who, in 2023, continue to work, according to the “employment, unemployment, income from work” file from INSEE, published last July. They then join the employment-retirement accumulation system which allows them to resume an activity even if they have liquidated their pension rights. And new, since the 2023 pension reform, with this accumulation, they can create new pension rights and thus increase the future pension they will receive, once they have definitively ceased all activity.

In general, there are few breaks between the liquidation of retirement and the resumption of a new professional activity. “People who liquidated their pension rights at the age of 63 or more often continued to work in the six months that followed”points out the document from the National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies. For example, a third of the self-employed continue to work for six months after their pension begins to be paid.

A financial need for 4 out of 10 retirees

But what are the reasons that can motivate these new retirees to return to work so quickly? For four out of ten people, working after retirement is a financial necessity. “38% do it out of necessity to earn additional income, and 36% continue because they get satisfaction from their work, whether because they enjoy working (21%) or for the human contact and social life (15%).”the study details. As evidence of the need for additional income in retirement, those who continue to work out of necessity are mainly employees (30%), intermediate professions (18%) and workers (16%).

Financial motivation can take different forms. For example, 23% of people who combine a job with their retirement do so because they have a current mortgage loan and 21% of them are tenants, compared to 13% for those who accumulate “for pleasure”. The weight of real estate in their budget therefore encourages them to maintain an activity. The same thing when they still have a child to support, which is the case for 17% of retirees who continue to work out of financial necessity.

>> Our service – A question about your future retirement? Our expert partners will answer you with a personalized solution

Conversely, the “cumulants” who do it because they “get satisfaction from it” are mainly self-employed (36%) and executive employees (22%). 46% of them are graduates and 39% retired at 63 or older, which already shows their desire to continue working.