Millions more have quit the workforce altogether, subsisting on disability pensions or other social benefits.

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That includes people who have retired early, those on disability pensions, and the beneficiaries of a wide variety of other welfare programmes.

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The awards are calculated based on economic loss, pain and suffering, minus other payments such as pensions or disability payments for injuries.

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After the oil-price shocks of the 1970s, several European governments tried to cut the unemployment rolls by letting older workers collect early pensions or draw sickness and disability benefits for which they did not strictly qualify.

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