But now, a more flexible attitude toward retirement policies is in evidence in some European corporate and government circles.

Under this more fluid system, an employee might, for example, retire at 50, or might reduce responsibilities slowly to step down entirely at 69.

Either way, the employee would still qualify for a reasonable pension.

"The name of the game is slowing down when you feel like it," said Giacomo Luciani, a 52-year-old consultant and former oil-company executive who is now seeking to do it his way.

Coming and going

"You choose your profession ... you should also choose how you leave your job," said Antoine Laville, a professor at Paris's Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes and an ergonomist who specialises in the relationship between work and aging.

But questions over costs and demographics complicate the issue.

Across Europe, there is a debate about the merits of fixed versus flexible retirement ages, and how to calculate how much the government and the pensioner would pay.

Governments are grappling to adjust social welfare and pension plans to prepare for when the number of retirees outpaces the number of new workers.

Facing dwindling pension coffers, French employers are seeking to increase to 45 from 40 the number of years that employees must contribute to their pension plans before they receive full benefits.

Switzerland rejected a plan to allow workers to opt out as early as 62 instead of 65, saying that move was too costly.

In other nations, the concept of flexibility in retirement policy is catching on.

Britain is moving to abolish by 2006 the mandatory retirement age of 65 - which is now considered discriminatory - to allow people to work longer if they want.

Italy has taken steps to alleviate tax and pension penalties for leaving too early or staying on too long.

Elsewhere, employees are taking advantage of loopholes to create tailor-made retirement plans for themselves.

To Laville, the need to allow more flexibility is apparent. Since it is clear that people age differently, the logical approach is to allow them to leave when it suits their needs, Laville said.

"Each person has his own story, his own personality, which should be respected," Laville said. "And we are not identical all our lives."

Employees, for example, could be permitted to reduce their work hours from full time to half time at age 50 or 55. Or they might be permitted to do less physically demanding or repetitive work.

Laville said working beyond age 69 isn't advisable, and recommends that an independent company doctor should monitor an ageing employee's performance.

Footing the flexibility bill

The concept has its merits, but where will the money come from? For example, in France, the ratio of active workers to retirees is expected to shrink from the current 2.2-to-1 to 1-to-1 by 2020.

To ease the financial strain, Laville recommends gradually shifting the source of an employee's income from his salary to his pension until the division is equally balanced.

All this sounds good, but is flexible retirement a practical idea in the real world?

"Dramatically so," said Franco Ratti, a human resources executive for ENI SpA.

"Companies will have to do this kind of thing in the future. You have to make room for the young generations, and to give the people who have spent a lot of their life in one company the opportunity to do something else."

Making distinctions

The French employers' federation, Medef, favours permitting flexible retirement plans, with earlier retirements for early starters and workers performing physically demanding tasks, and extended employment for others, a spokeswoman said.

But Medef's priority is to seek the reform of France's complex public-pension system so that it applies more equally to private and public employees, she said.

As things stand, if private-sector employees in France choose to retire before they have contributed to the pension fund for 40 years, they can be heavily penalised.

And if you want to work beyond 65 in France, your income - including social welfare and pension benefits - can't exceed your previous gross.

To evade these restrictions, one French professional said he persuaded his employer to fire him at age 57 and then collected unemployment insurance, under which the state pays his pension contributions.

This professional remains active in his industry, and coy about whether he is being remunerated.

At age 60, he will become a legitimate pensioner. At that point, he is thinking of creating a company to employ himself. He must then make pension contributions out of his new income. But he will be working - and retiring - on his own terms.

Cotten Timberlake is a special correspondent to CareerJournalEurope.com and The Wall Street Journal Europe. She is based in Paris.

Subject: Retirement