More and more employees in Germany want to retire earlier, and psychological strain plays a bigger role in that wish than physical strain. This is shown by an analysis by the Bundesanstalt für Arbeitsschutz und Arbeitsmedizin (BAuA), Germany’s federal institute for occupational safety and health, published in August 2026 and discussed on 14 October 2026 by trade publication Haufe Arbeitsschutz.
What does the BAuA survey show?
The researchers drew on the BAuA Working Time Survey (BAuA-Arbeitszeitbefragung), an ongoing survey of employees in Germany. They used data from five survey waves between 2015 and 2023, covering 32,686 person-year observations. The central question: has the desire to retire earlier increased, and is it linked to the job demands people are exposed to?
The answer is clear. In 2015, about 60 percent of respondents wanted to stop working before the statutory retirement age; by 2023 that had risen to 78 percent. In addition, a quarter of employees (25 percent) believe they will not be able to keep working under current conditions until the regular retirement age. The researchers specifically examined combinations of physical and psychosocial job demands, so-called multiple exposure, and concluded that psychosocial factors in particular, such as high time pressure and role conflicts, fuel the desire to stop working early. Physical strain, such as unfavourable working postures, also plays a role, but a clearly smaller one.
Which occupations most often want to retire early?
The desire to retire early varies strongly by occupational group. Manufacturing occupations score highest, at 86 percent. Technical production occupations follow with 83 percent, and construction and finishing occupations with 82 percent. The share is also around 80 percent in transport and logistics and in healthcare occupations. For business services and management or organisation it is 75 percent, and for social and cultural services 67 percent. According to the researchers, age-conscious personnel policy should therefore look not only at individual risks but especially at the simultaneous occurrence of several burdening factors, and relief from psychological and organisational pressure should start early in a person’s career.
Context
The link between the desire to retire early and workload is also known outside Germany. As early as a 2012 report based on the fifth European Working Conditions Survey, the EU agency for working conditions, Eurofound, showed that around a third of employees aged 50 to 54 expect they will not be able or willing to keep working in the same job until age 60. The share was highest among women in medium-skilled manual occupations (55 percent) and low-skilled occupations (54 percent), compared with 17 percent among male managers and professionals. Eurofound cited painful working postures, a poor work-life balance, job insecurity and limited career prospects as explanations.
The new German figures are consistent with that picture: not everyone can keep working longer under the same conditions, and in the BAuA analysis it is mainly psychological and organisational workload that weighs heavily. For employers and prevention advisers, that makes preventing time pressure, role ambiguity and organisational stress, alongside classic physical occupational safety, an increasingly important part of sustainable employability policy.
Source: BAuA working time survey: when and why do employees want to retire earlier?, 14 October 2026
Additional research: Eurofound, Sustainable work and the ageing workforce (2012), based on the fifth European Working Conditions Survey
