The charts illustrates the average retirement ages for men and women in seven countries (Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Sweden and the UK) in 2004 and 2008. It is clear that in most countries, the average retirement ages for both genders increased slightly from 2004 to 2008, except for Italy, where the average age women retired declined gently. Moreover, the average age for retirement of both men and women in Sweden always the highest.
As can be seen from the graph, the figure for men in Sweden always at the top rank, from 63.3 to 63.6; while that of France was at the bottom of the rank, at 58.8 and 59 respectively in a period of four years. Additionally, whilst the data for men in six countries (Denmark, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden, and the UK) rose, the average age of Italian remained steady at 60 years old.
Looking at the bar chart for women, just like the figure for men, the age of Swedish hit the highest point, and that for French was the lowest in both 2004 and 2008. In addition, Italy was the only country to experienced a reduction over the same period as the other six countries.