The Times (London)
May 11, 2005
Forget the gold watch, we want to work –
but on our own terms
by Alexandra Frean, Social Affairs correspondent
FAREWELL Countdown. Goodbye golf clubs and bowling shoes. The familiar concept of a long and leisured old age is simply a quirk of the 20th century and is no longer relevant.
A survey into global attitudes towards old age found that far from accepting retirement as the beginning of the end of their working lives, more than three quarters of all adults now believe that they should be allowed to continue working to any age they choose.
The majority of adults throughout the world reject a mandatory retirement age, which they regard as a hindrance to the active life they want to live after they have officially retired.
Ken Dychtwald, a US gerontologist and author of the report, said that increasing lifespans, declining birthrates and the ageing of the baby-boom generation were combining to create new and complex pressures across the world.
"I think we will find that the notion of a 20-year idle retirement was a quirk of the 20th century, made possible by the fact that we had a small generation that gave birth to a large generation, which they then educated well, " Dr Dichtwald said.
"People are now waking up on their 60th birthday and saying, 'It can't all be over. Now, how can I reinvent myself?'"
The survey, commissioned by HSBC bank, is based on interviews with
11,453 adults in ten countries, including Britain. Although it found plenty of optimism about old age, it also uncovered a growing acceptance that people would have to retire later to ease the burden on pensions and taxation and to pay their own way in their later years.
In every country surveyed, fewer than half of those below retirement age had calculated their financial needs in retirement, even though there was widespread awareness that the State alone would be unlikely to support them adequately. In Britain the figure was just 23 per cent. In Britain fewer than a quarter of people said that they hoped never to work again after retirement, while just over a quarter said they would like to "cycle" back and forth between periods of different types of work, gap-year style travel and further education, while more than a third said they wanted to work part-time.
Only 28 per cent of adults in Britain said they expected their retirement to be primarily about rest and relaxation. Given the choice between increasing taxes, reducing pensions or raising the retirement age,
45 per cent chose the latter.
Just 26 per cent said they would accept higher taxes and only 15 per cent opted to reduce pension benefits. Dr Dychtwald said that there was still time to avoid a worldwide pensions crisis. The baby boomers, unlike any other generation, had altered every stage of life as they passed through
it: from the invention of the teenager to the mid-life crisis. "Now they are turning 60, they are about to shake up retirement too."
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