The bad news, however, is that Romania is aging: for every 10 working people, there are 8 pensioners. This figure shows the structural pressure on the public pension system, which directly affects the state budget and the long-term sustainability of the intergenerational social contract, writes HotNews.ro.
These data were published on March 27 by Romania’s National Institute of Statistics. In 2025, the country will have an average of 4.917 million pensioners – 42,000 fewer than in 2024. The decline continues the trend of recent years, partly due to natural mortality, partly due to weaker growth in the number of early retirees.
Old-age pensions remain the dominant category: 3.94 million people – that is, 80.2% of all pensioners receiving social insurance pensions. The number of disability pensioners increased slightly, to 404,000, while survivor pensions decreased to 469,000.
Inequality persists
The average monthly pension for all categories of pensioners reached LE 2,936 in 2025, compared to LE 2,580 in 2024 – a nominal increase of 13.8%. However, the average values hide serious geographical differences. The gap between the lowest and highest average pension in the districts is 1,326 lei – a difference almost as big as the gross minimum wage a few years ago.
At one end of the spectrum are Bucharest (3554 lei), Hunedoara (3505 lei) and Brasov (3325 lei) – counties with historically developed heavy industry or high-paying services. At the other end: Botosanj (2228 lei), Vrancea (2266 lei) and Giurgiu (2279 lei).
The most worrying indicator is not the average pension, but the demographic load factor, HotNews.ro notes. Nationwide, for every 10 workers, there are 8 pensioners of the state social security system. In practice: fewer and fewer taxpayers support more and more beneficiaries.
