But this enormous bureaucratic undertaking has created its own problems, particularly at a time when the number of government employees was shrinking.

Reliable data on the state of the Greek pension system does not seem to exist. Platon Tinios, an economist and pension expert at Piraeus University, points out that despite a wave of early retirements, the latest official data suggests that there are 2.65 million retirees today, fewer than the 2.7 million in 2013.

“That just defies explanation,” he said. “They don’t know what they are doing.”

One explanation may be that there is a backlog of more than 400,000 pension applications, some of which have been in the pipeline for three years, government officials have said.

However bad the problems are now, Mr. Tinios said, the situation is likely to get worse. The limits on early retirement in 2010 did not include people who were already vested, he said, meaning that the flow into the system will remain high for years to come. Women who took early retirement, most of whom had lower-paying jobs, will find themselves with small or shrinking incomes for the rest of their lives, he added.

“The system is a ticking time bomb,” he said.

After months of negotiations between the Tsipras government and Greece’s creditors, in which pensions appeared to be a central sticking point, the two sides unveiled dueling proposals last week on a range of issues that could hardly have been further apart.

The creditors want to establish substantial early-retirement penalties for those who still choose the option, and to cut existing pensions even more — even the smallest ones. The proposal also demands further unifying the funds and establishing a closer link between contribution and benefits, most likely setting the stage for yet more cuts.