It can be stated that the indicator describing the effective retirement age in the report works quite well. It gives the same picture of the development in each country as the corresponding national indicators used in Finland, Sweden and Norway, but produces a result which is more comparable between the different Nordic countries. As to their level, the national indicators differ slightly from the Nordic indicator. In Finland the national expectancy figures are lower than those of the Nordic indicator. On the other hand, in Sweden and Norway they are higher. The Nordic indicator is better suited for comparisons between different countries because of the same data and definitions, but does not replace the national indicators.

There are some differences in effective retirement age between the Nordic countries. In Iceland the effective retirement age is exceptionally high compared to the other countries. In addition the difference in effective retirement age between men and women is clearly larger than in the other Nordic countries.

Finland differs from the other countries in comparison between genders. Only in Finland is the effective retirement age for women higher than for men as regards the expectancy for 30-year-olds. The difference between men and women is also smaller in Finland than in the other Nordic countries.

In Sweden the effective retirement age has started increasing after 2004. At the same time the difference between men and women seems to narrow. In Norway the effective retirement age has varied more than in the other Nordic countries. In the early 2000s the expectancy decreased, but turned slowly to increase after that, especially in 2007. In Denmark, the effective retirement age has decreased slightly in the early 2000s. This trend seems to have come to a halt, however.

A joint Nordic phenomenon seems to be the development in recent years. The effective retirement age has started to increase as of late, or at least the decreasing trend no longer continues. This has surely been affected by favorable economic and labour market developments and the changes to the pension legislation that have been carried out in the Nordic countries.

In all Nordic countries, life expectancy has increased clearly between 1997 and 2006. Increase has occurred in both life expectancy at birth and remaining life expectancy at age 60. Life expectancy is highest in Iceland and lowest in Denmark. In Iceland especially men retire so much later than others that their time in retirement is 3.5 years shorter than for other Nordic men. The differences between the other Nordic countries are small. For women, the differences between the countries are a couple of years, i.e. smaller than for men, although their time in retirement is approximately five years longer than for men. Norwegian women have the longest and Icelandic women have the shortest time in retirement.