RETIREMENT OR RENAISSANCE?
A key social event as people live longer is the moment of retirement.
The first State to introduce pensions was Germany with Bismarck. He had both a visionary and a practical turn of mind because when he introduced pensions in the 19th Century starting at the age of sixty-five he knew, and admitted, that there would not be much expense because most people would be dead within a year or two of retirement.Also he introduced pensions and universal healthcare as part of his battle against Socialism
In the United Kingdom the age of seventy was chosen in 1911 and then reduced to sixty-five for both sexes and then the retirement age for women was reduced to sixty because it was realised that many men had married women younger than themselves. Again, when these decisions were made the expectation of life was not great but now of course the situation is different and people who retire in their sixties should expect to life until the nineties because more than half of them will.
Perhaps the most insightful commentary on this has come from Lynda Gratton and Andrew Scott of the London Business School in their book “The-100-Year Life”. In their book they emphasise that we need to move from the old fashioned model of the three phase life – childhood, work and retirement to one of which people will have multiple phases of life with some people stopping their first career, not only at retirement age but often much earlier to take up another career, with even the word career sounding old fashioned implying that it was a life’s work for somebody. Many people of course respond that there are issues related to the management of compulsory retirement. People who are against compulsory retirement criticise it because it is ageist, but then others point out that young people need work because pensions certainly in the public sector are much more generous for people retiring the 21st Century than they will be for people retiring in thirty years time hence, they propose, people with a good and secure pension should retire and make way for younger people
Another feature of modern life is the increasing number of start-ups launched by people in their sixties and seventies.
The psychological impact of retirement
For some people retirement is a welcome release from a job that had grown irksome, sitting all day under stress partly from the nature of the job partly from bad management and again it is important to remember the link between inactivity and stress namely the causation of inflammation in all tissues including the brain. People with this work history often find an improvement in health after retirement. For other people retirement means a loss of role, purpose and status but the negative effects of retirement have perhaps been over- emphasised.
What is emerging now is the need to think afresh about retirement and in her book “Extra Time” Camilla Cavendish emphasises the need for a much broader policy debate, reflecting the comments and analysis of The-100-Year-Life
There is no doubt that people in their seventies and eighties are much fitter than they were twenty years ago, and very much fitter than they were when pensions were introduced so it is important that we see them as groups who can make an even greater contribution than they are at present – paid or unpaid. One excellent way of doing this is through the Challenge Hub
A key social event as people live longer is the moment of retirement.
The first State to introduce pensions was Germany with Bismarck. He had both a visionary and a practical turn of mind because when he introduced pensions in the 19th Century starting at the age of sixty-five he knew, and admitted, that there would not be much expense because most people would be dead within a year or two of retirement.Also he introduced pensions and universal healthcare as part of his battle against Socialism
In the United Kingdom the age of seventy was chosen in 1911 and then reduced to sixty-five for both sexes and then the retirement age for women was reduced to sixty because it was realised that many men had married women younger than themselves. Again, when these decisions were made the expectation of life was not great but now of course the situation is different and people who retire in their sixties should expect to life until the nineties because more than half of them will.
Perhaps the most insightful commentary on this has come from Lynda Gratton and Andrew Scott of the London Business School in their book “The-100-Year Life”. In their book they emphasise that we need to move from the old fashioned model of the three phase life – childhood, work and retirement to one of which people will have multiple phases of life with some people stopping their first career, not only at retirement age but often much earlier to take up another career, with even the word career sounding old fashioned implying that it was a life’s work for somebody. Many people of course respond that there are issues related to the management of compulsory retirement. People who are against compulsory retirement criticise it because it is ageist, but then others point out that young people need work because pensions certainly in the public sector are much more generous for people retiring the 21st Century than they will be for people retiring in thirty years time hence, they propose, people with a good and secure pension should retire and make way for younger people
Another feature of modern life is the increasing number of start-ups launched by people in their sixties and seventies.
The psychological impact of retirement
For some people retirement is a welcome release from a job that had grown irksome, sitting all day under stress partly from the nature of the job partly from bad management and again it is important to remember the link between inactivity and stress namely the causation of inflammation in all tissues including the brain. People with this work history often find an improvement in health after retirement. For other people retirement means a loss of role, purpose and status but the negative effects of retirement have perhaps been over- emphasised.
What is emerging now is the need to think afresh about retirement and in her book “Extra Time” Camilla Cavendish emphasises the need for a much broader policy debate, reflecting the comments and analysis of The-100-Year-Life
There is no doubt that people in their seventies and eighties are much fitter than they were twenty years ago, and very much fitter than they were when pensions were introduced so it is important that we see them as groups who can make an even greater contribution than they are at present – paid or unpaid. One excellent way of doing this is through the Challenge Hub