#EMPLOYMENT & SOCIETY
Expected duration of working life in France in 2025: 37.5 years. In the European Union: 37.5 years. The country described as the one that works least sits exactly on the average — and has done, within half a year, every year since 2002.
Published on September 4, 2026 · to be rechecked on June 1, 2027
Each year Eurostat estimates, from the Labour Force Survey, how many years a 15-year-old can expect to spend active — employed or unemployed — over a lifetime. In 2025 the indicator reads 37.5 years for France and 37.5 years for the EU27 average. This is not a one-year coincidence: since 2002, the first year the European average is available, the two series have never diverged by more than half a year. France moved from 31.9 years in 2000 to 37.5 in 2025, adding 5.6 years of working life in a quarter of a century.
How far behind Europe is France on working life duration?
It isn't. 37.5 years in France, 37.5 years in the EU27 in 2025 — and a gap never wider than half a year since 2002.
In other words: the gap people think they see with Europe is really a gap with Germany and the Nordics, not with the European average.
Five caveats that belong with the number
- The gap with Germany is real and lasting: 40.2 years against 37.5 in 2025, or 2.7 years. It already existed in 2000 (34.3 against 31.9) and has not closed.
- The European average is pulled down by Italy, at 33.0 years. Against the Netherlands (44.0) and Sweden (43.4), the French gap is large: up to 6.5 years.
- The indicator counts years spent active — employed or unemployed — not years actually worked. A country with high unemployment is not penalised by this measure.
- The French result hides an asymmetry: women reach 36.2 years against an EU average of 35.4, so above it; men 38.7 against 39.5, so below.
- Working life duration depends as much on the age of entry, and therefore on years of study, as on the age of exit. It cannot be read as a retirement age.
Why it still matters: comparing a country to "Europe" says nothing until you name the countries that make up the average.
For you
- When you are told France works less than Europe, which country is it actually being compared to?
- Between entering employment earlier and leaving it later, which of the two is really at stake in the debate you are hearing?
Source: Eurostat, table lfsi_dwl_a (Duration of working life), 2025 vintage — France and EU27 both at 37.5 years, Germany 40.2, Netherlands 44.0, Sweden 43.4, Spain 36.8, Italy 33.0.
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