Actual life expectancy of the lower class and the politically high-ranking retirement age

The official narrative is clear and seemingly unassailable, she speaks of a society that is getting older and is therefore allegedly forced to shift the retirement age upwards. In this story, committees, commissions and so-called experts on tables and forecasts are based on the fact that the increasing life expectancy is no longer a question, but a fixed factorwhich must adapt to retirement age. The picture that is drawn is smooth, technically and seemingly rational, it refers to average values that are supposed to nip any doubt in the bud and suggests that every additional lifespan must be paid automatically with longer gainful employment. In this logic, the people who are at the bottom of society remain invisibleLife that lives in bad apartments, works in harmful occupations and whose bodies are worn out early, although they never appear in the brilliant statistics. The political speech about the supposedly growing life expectancy pretends to be equally favored by medical progress, as if everyone breathed the same air, had the same access to doctors,to stable income, to safe CVs. But behind the embellished curves is a brutal truth that does not appear there: the life expectancy of the lower class does not increase, it stagnates or breaks off, while the political pressure on retirement age is increasing. The narrative of the general aging of society becomes a protective shield behind whichDeliberately decisions are made that blame the burdens on those who have the least anyway.

The declining life expectancy of the lower class and its dangerous proximity to retirement age

Life expectancy is not uniform in Germany, it splits along the social lines and hits the lower class with particular harshness, even if the total numbers suggest otherwise. Research shows that people with very low pension entitlements die much earlier than those with high demands and that this gap has been wider for further decadeshas. Anyone who ends up in the lower area of the pension scale has, a few years after working life, often only a narrow window of time that is threateningly close to the statutory retirement age. There is no random overlap in this proximity, it is an expression of a system that reduces the lifetime of the lower classes through hard work, unsafe employment, low wages and deficientShortened supply and then pretends to be just a result of sober statistical calculations. While politics speaks in a sober tone about raising retirement age, it is noted that many at the lower end of society do not statistically achieve this age at the lower end of society, that they die before their first pension payment or only for a short time in health-impairedspend conditions. The dangerous proximity of life expectancy and retirement age in the lower class is not a technical side effect, but a symptom of a deep social imbalance in which the hardest workers have the lowest proportion of the supposedly gained lifetime. The system produces a silent boundary line where the bodies of the lower layers break,While the pension policy coolly announces that you have to work longer because you supposedly live longer.

The burglary in the East: loss of life in the area of the former GDR

This imbalance in eastern Germany is particularly drastic, in the area of the former GDR, where the life expectancy of the lower classes is not only lagging behind, but has also broken down in parts. Analyzes show that men with low pension entitlements in particular have a significantly lower remaining lifetime after retirement and that the group oflow earner has grown significantly. In East Germany, the social composition of the elderly population has changed so that more and more people are falling into the lowest income group, which is depressing the average life expectancy of these regions and increasing the gap to wealthy groups. Researchers speak of a painful reverberation of the so-calledReunification, a social shock, the consequences of which are now reflected in statistical curves behind which there are real life that have been shortened. This development is particularly affecting those who have worked for a long time in physically demanding professions, whose wages were low and whose pensions remained brittle, while at the same time the official debate about retirement age was hardlytalks about these differences. In the political opinions on the aging of society, the special loss of lifetime in the East appears at most as a side note, never as a core of a problem that completely questions the alleged justice of pension policy. The reality of life in the poorer regions of the East is systematically crossed out as if it wereAn annoying disruption of the great narrative of the general progress of life expectancy.

Declining purchasing power, poor food and crumbling healthcare

The life expectancy of the lower class is not only the result of abstract mortality tables, it arises from an everyday life in which falling pensions and income, measured by real purchasing power, are increasingly restricting the scope for action. Those who live at the lower end of the income scale have to reckon with every purchase, use cheaper, inferior food and carry theHealth consequences of poor quality, high sugar content, hardened fats and poor fresh food. At the same time, health insurance and care supply come under pressure, benefits are reduced, co-payments are increasing, waiting times are extended and access to certain treatments is increasingly dependent on financial possibilities. What earlier thannatural medical care was a matter of course, today it often becomes the question of whether one can afford it, whether one gets an appointment in good time, whether the necessary therapy is still in the service catalogue. The result is a gradual reduction of health, which later reveals diseases, treats chronic conditions less well and the physical stress of working withless support is cushioned. The lower class pays this price in the form of a shortened lifetime, without this connection being seriously named in the official justifications for a higher retirement age. When the life expectancy is increased, the poor group health instincts remain invisible, although they underwash the statistical surfaceand make the average values hollow constructs.

Distorted calculations: How Statistics Makes Reality Invisible

The calculation of life expectancy is often presented as a neutral science, but the way these figures come about is itself highly political and full of blind spots. A key distortion is that the calculations look at surviving populations and do not seriously involve many forms of early termination of life, so that the real risks inappear weakened in the lower layers. High numbers of aborted pregnancies are not directly mapped in the usual life expectancy statistics, although they mark part of the reality in which life is ended early or not even allowed and thus supports the image of an allegedly aging society without visualizing the losses. to thatIf regional and social inaccuracies are mixed up statistically mixed with poorer districts, precarious life situations and certain professional groups with richer and healthier milieus, so that an average is created that has little to do with the concrete experience of the lower class. If the life expectancy figures then become the basis for political decisions, it is overlooked that theyDo not adequately depict the extreme shortness of life in the lower layers, but cover them by the weight of the higher layers. The average becomes a political tool that blurs hardening and veils inequalities, while at the same time pension commissions pretend to be an honest image of reality. On this basis, retirement agepulled up as if it were about a neutral adaptation to irrefutable facts, but it is figures that are based on systematic distortions and hardly grasp the complex breaks in the lower area.

Blue zones and the legend of the extremely long life

In the public debate, stories about regions in which allegedly many very old people live, these so-called blue zones are presented as proof that long life has long since become normal, are presented again and again. However, recent researches shed a bright light on these stories and show that many extremely high age informationare based on incorrect data, unreliable reporting systems and targeted fraud. In some countries, false births, fake identities and sloppy registry maintenance were used to secure or extend annuity payments, which artificially boosted the number of alleged centenarians. Instead of a reliable basis for the assertion that more and morePeople get very old, the picture of a patchwork quilt is the result of incorrect information and interest-based data transfer. Nevertheless, these zones are often used in popular reports and political chats to support the idea that old age is a widespread phenomenon on which pension policy must be based. that behind some of these numbersstealth Structures and simple data errors are rarely pronounced openly because the legend of the extremely long life suits them well in order to make the increase in retirement age appear inevitable. Thus, questionable statistics merge with political rhetoric and create an impression of aging, which completely overshadows the shortened lifetime of the lower class.

Average values as a political tool against the lower class

The proven lower life expectancy of the lower class is mentioned at most in the official pension debate, it does not play a central role, although scientific studies show clear differences between rich and poor. Men with very low age benefits die on average much earlier than those with high references, and this gap has changed over the course of theyears, while the political discussion continues to operate with total values that cover this gap. Instead of making the different life expectancy the core of the debate, average values are used, in which the longer lifetime of the upper classes covers the shortened lifetime of the lower ones and thus a foundation for decisionscreates that push the retirement age further up. Pension policy pretends to be based on neutral numbers, in fact it relies on constructions that shift the burdens down and burden those who work the hardest and die at the earliest. that these people often do not even until the official retirement agecome, is not discussed in the language of the commissions, their early death does not appear in any political speech when the necessary adjustments and long-term stability of the system are discussed. The average life expectancy thus becomes an instrumental value that turns inequality into a seemingly factual curve and statistically the social painneutralized. On this basis, the pushing of retirement age is sold as a reasonable measure, although it is in fact a tightening of injustice that deprives the lowest of the remaining lifetime of their already tight remaining life.

The system that eats life

For the lower class, it is not about subtle differences in tables, but about the brutal experience of a life that demands physically, financially exhausts and undermines health long before retirement age is reached. Anyone who spends their working life in poorly paid jobs, often with physical stress, changing shifts and constant uncertainty, has the consequencesin the form of worn joints, permanent pain, cardiovascular problems and a condition in which each additional month of employment becomes torment. At the same time, there is a lack of calm, stability, the possibility of recovery because the income is not enough to finance longer phases of relief, and because every failure with fear of job loss, of debt and pre-connected to further social decline. The political debate about retirement age treats this situation as if it were a marginal phenomenon, it speaks in abstract formulas about securing the systems and about allegedly necessary steps without asking who is actually surviving these steps. This creates a system that eats up life that the lower layersHard work, poor care and low income wears out early and then tells you that you would have to work longer because the statistical life expectancy is increasing. The coldness of this argument is not accidental, it is part of a power logic in which the suffering of the lower classes is systematically removed from the language, so that the shift in burdens down as factualneed may appear. While the official speeches speak of the great balance of the pension funds, the broken bodies and the shortage of the lower class’s lifetime disappear from sight as if they were insignificant collateral damage. [Bruegel](https://www.bruegel.org/first-glance/german-pension-reform-first-steps-along-difficult-path)

The pushing of retirement age as a hidden pension cut

The permanent raising of retirement age is often described as a technical adjustment, as a reasonable reaction to demographic developments, but for the lower class it is nothing more than a hidden pension cut. Those who die earlier receive fewer retirement years, no matter how high the arithmetic entitlement is, the actual lifetime in the pension shrinks and thus also thereal achievable benefits of this promise. People in low-income groups, who are already working harder and more onerously, have a statistically lower chance of reaching the statutory retirement age at all, and when they do, often in a state where any further phase of employment is almost impossible. For this group, a higher retirement age means that agrowing part of their lives, without ever receiving a significant pension, or only experiencing short years marked by illness and limitation. The political system treats this loss as if it were a private tragedy, not as a structural consequence of a decision, but it is clearly documented that the life expectancy of the lower classes is lower and thattheir health situation is worse. Postponing the retirement age shifts the burden to those who are least able to defend themselves, who do not have a strong lobby, who disappear into statistical averages and whose previous deaths do not appear in the debates. On the surface, there is talk of a necessary reform, including a targetedShortening the pension phase for the lower class, packaged in technical language that hides any moral question.