Brussels: Europe and the Arabs

The wealth gap among older people in Europe is enormous. The average net worth of households aged 65 to 74 in Luxembourg is €1.22 million, compared to just €36,300 in Latvia, highlighting the role of housing, pensions, and family support in securing retirement.

Wealth in retirement varies significantly across Europe, determining living standards to a degree that far exceeds what pension income alone can provide, according to a report published by Euronews, the European news network based in Brussels. The report added that in some countries, older households possess wealth more than 30 times greater than their counterparts in other countries, underscoring the crucial role of housing, pensions, and family support in shaping financial security in later life.

Which countries have the wealthiest populations over 65? In the eurozone, households aged 65-74 have a median net worth of €185,300. Across the 22 European countries, this figure ranges from €36,300 in Latvia to €1,219,500 in Luxembourg. (For comparison, wealth figures are given in euros, including for countries outside the eurozone.)

Luxembourg is a clear exception; the next highest figure, in Malta, is €310,000.

Belgium and Ireland lead the way, followed by France and Germany.
Apart from these two smaller EU countries, older households are the wealthiest in Belgium and Ireland. The median net worth for households aged 65-74 is €307,700 in Belgium. Ireland is also approaching the €300,000 mark, with a median net worth of €296,700.

France ranks fifth with a median net worth of €232,800, closely followed by Germany at €232,100. In Spain, the median net worth for this age group is €200,800.

Among the four largest economies in the European Union, Italy has the lowest figure at €168,000, meaning that retirees in France and Germany have more than €60,000 more than their Italian counterparts.
Austria (€188,500) is slightly above the Eurozone average, while Finland (€176,100) is slightly below it.

The Netherlands is among the countries below average.

The Netherlands (€134,400) stands out as a country where those over 65 have relatively modest household wealth despite a highly rated pension system, demonstrating that high retirement incomes do not always translate into large levels of private wealth. Meanwhile, Slovenia (€138,200), Greece (€104,300), the Czech Republic (€102,900), and Slovakia (€100,800) also fall well below the average.

At the bottom of the list, in addition to Latvia, are five other countries where the median net worth of households aged 65-74 is less than €100,000: Lithuania (€51,400), Hungary (€54,400), Estonia (€73,500), Croatia (€75,900), and Portugal (€99,200).

The median net worth of households aged 75 and over in the eurozone is €144,400, €40,900, or 22%, less than that of households aged 65-74. In almost every country studied, median net wealth is lower for households with members aged 75 and over compared to those aged 65 to 74. Luxembourg and Belgium are the only exceptions.

In Austria, this median is 51% lower, and in Germany, 44% lower. In France, it is only 14% lower.

Reasons for the Disparities Between Countries
The HFCS department noted in a previous report that differences in income, household composition, homeownership, mortgage borrowing, and house prices are among the main factors behind the variations in net wealth between countries.

Individual Savings Behavior and Long-Term Interactions
Professor Fabian Pfeiffer of LMU Munich and founding director of the Stone International Centre for Inequality Research in Munich said: “These disparities between countries remind us that wealth is never simply a result of individual saving behavior.” He added: “It reflects the long-standing interplay between housing markets, welfare states, pension systems, credit institutions, family transfers, and historical trajectories toward asset ownership.”

The Role of Home Ownership

He noted that these figures show the extent to which European societies have structured private wealth accumulation differently. For many households, the home is their most important asset.

“Where older households have had greater access to homeownership and have benefited from rising property values, median net worth tends to appear much higher. Where renting is more common, private net worth may appear lower, even if older people are protected in other ways,” he said.

Fabian Pfeiffer explained that Germany and Austria, for example, appear less wealthy in household net worth data, partly because a larger proportion of households rent.

“This doesn’t automatically mean that older people living in rented accommodation are poor, but it does mean that a smaller portion of their economic security is reflected as private wealth on household balance sheets,” he continued. Public pensions are excluded.

Net worth data does not include the present value of public or occupational pension benefits. Pfeiffer emphasized that pension benefits are a crucial source of income for many older adults.