One of the most difficult dangers journalists face is avoiding unwittingly adopting biased mindsets, often out of self-interest. The BBVA Foundation has prepared a report, and these are some of the headlines it generated: "Retirement for today's young people soars at 71," "Young people forced to postpone their retirement until 71." These are enticing headlines, but they generate confusion because they may suggest that all young people will have to wait until that age to retire. This is not the case. The study simply notes that younger generations are entering the labor market at increasingly later ages. This means they take longer to complete the required years of contributions to ensure 100% of their pension. The headlines make people believe that no young person will be able to retire before 71, but it's just an average statistic, like the one that says, if I've eaten two chickens and your boss has, on average we've each eaten one chicken. And that average, of course, is meager consolation for you. Some media outlets frame the issue well, making it clear that it was an average estimate for the future and linking it to youth insecurity (which is what needs to be addressed).
The failure to explain who launched this study could pose another problem, because one of the solutions they propose is—what a coincidence!—that people save throughout their working lives and set aside a little extra or take out a private insurance plan. This is a very sensible proposal—if your salary allows you to do so—but it benefits the parent company of the foundation behind the report. And, of course, we missed some voice pointing out the contradiction of implicitly asking young people to start saving by 2065, if their problem is precisely that they can't find a job with social security contributions.
