retire or not to retire – but will there be a pension?
TRANSCRIPT
Ed i to r ia l
Retire or not to retire – but will there be a pension?
It would appear that the European Union and the
UK coalition government has at last begun to grasp
the reality of our ageing population with its sub-
stantial life expectancy and the increasing burden
on the state to provide support in health and wel-
fare. This is being particularly compromised by the
fact that there is a decreasing working population
to support this cohort of people but also the fragility
of the economic situation in most developed
countries due to the credit crunch where harsh
choices are having to be made. It is not a case of
one choice or another or just cutting back but the
virtual removal of significant parts of the social and
welfare structure. In Scotland, where there has
been a major move over the last few years to free
eye checkups and medical prescriptions with
significant financial support for older people in
care, there is now a major debate taking place
which could easily result in most of these dis-
appearing as there is simply no money to pay for
them. When the original age was set for retirement
and the receipt of a state pension only a very small
proportion actually reached that age as life expec-
tancy was relatively low. However, with the
improvement in living conditions, diet and medical
support, life expectancy has increased significantly
such that many people are still having a very active
life well into theirs 70s and 80s. As a result many
more are claiming a pension and social support
from the welfare state, the resources for which
many are now realising are finite.
At present the retirement ages in Europe vary
from one country to another ranging from 57 in the
Czech Republic to 66 in Denmark for women and
60 in France and 66 in Denmark for men. A deci-
sion has been made that the retirement age will
have to be raised but this may not be early enough
to stave off major problems even if it is introduced
rapidly. The next issue is to decide what this might
be; some have suggested 68, others 70. The IE
Business School in Madrid has reported that in
Europe, although the current retirement age varies
considerably from country to country, this does not
actually mean the age that people stop working
which is usually significantly earlier. For example,
the average retirement age are 57 in Belgium and
Luxembourg, 58 in France, 59 in Greece, Austria
and Italy (similar to USA), 60 in Holland, Germany
and Spain, 61 in Finland and Denmark, 62 in UK,
Sweden and Portugal and 63 in Ireland. They also
suggest that there is a need for a greater number of
older people to stay in work but the number has in
fact dropped significantly over the last 30 years,
with countries such as Canada showing a fall of
27% and Germany 41% to give two examples.
However, this is not uniform as in Estonia and
Lithuania the average retirement age actually ex-
ceeds the statutory retirement age.
The European Commission has suggested that
retirement ages should be raised on a regular basis
so that no more than one third of adult life takes
place in retirement. They have proposed that
retirement should not start until at least 70 to
achieve a ‘balance’ in the workforce. That is a very
laudable suggestion but the implications for
implementing such a proposal would seem to be
significant. A complicating factor is the current
financial difficulties that some countries in Europe
are having and the reluctance of others to ‘bail out’
those whom they see as allowing people to retire at
an earlier age and therefore having a higher social
cost to meet.
In the UK, the Work and Pensions Secretary, Mr
Iain Duncan Smith, has suggested that there was a
need to link the ‘state’ retirement age to life
expectancy with proposals that the latter should be
raised to 66 for men by 2016 and 2020 for women.
It had originally been proposed that this might not
be phased in until the mid 2020s or even 2030s.
That is a very laudable suggestion but the impli-
cations for implementing such a proposal would
seem to be significant. This is all part of his review
of the multiple benefits available to people in the
UK with the proposal to simplify it into a single
catch all process. It has been suggested by the
British Chambers of Commerce that removal of the
lower retirement age will increase the number of
people wanting to work from the current 1.4 mil-
lion which represents 12.4% of that age group. Age
UK has also stated that in the last year, over
100,000 people were forced to retire against their
will. Another of the issues that will be closely
examined relates to those who have been out of
work and on benefits for at least nine of the last ten
years. The Government has just released figures
showing that 25% of the UK population will be
over 65 in 20 years’ time with some parts of the
country potentially having 40%. It is figures such
as these that go to show how immediate the issue
has become.
However, there is another problem which is
now coming to the fore and should have been
� 2010 The Author
Journal compilation � 2010 The Gerodontology Society and John Wiley & Sons A/S, Gerodontology 2010; 27: 165–166 165
anticipated. Many people who were looking for-
ward to retiring at a particular age are now not
taking very kindly to the expectation that they
will have to work longer and some younger peo-
ple feel that they will be kept out of a job by these
older working people. There is the potential for
people to stop working but that the state will not
provide a pension until some years later. Also it
would appear that many people in middle age
have not saved sufficiently for the time when they
will stop work and therefore will have to rely
more heavily on the state pension, but unfortu-
nately the latter is not at a level which most
would regard as being able to support a reasonable
standard of living. This presents a major problem
for the UK and for many other industrialised
countries.
It is interesting to note that in some professions,
age is not seen as a significant drawback and in fact
is looked upon as an advantage. This applies par-
ticularly to lawyers and judges and members of the
Roman Catholic Church. However, even here
retirement age has been set at 70 for judges and
priests and 75 for bishops and archbishops.
One clear insight as to where other industrial
countries may go in their population demo-
graphics is clearly shown by Japan. The Japanese
Ministry of Health has stated that life expectancy
for men is nearly 80 and for women it is greater
than 86 with more than 40,000 people being over
100 years of age. They expect by 2045 that the
life expectancy of women will reach 91 years and
the UN believes that the number of people in
Japan aged 100 years or more will reach 800,000.
In the UK, the Queen will be currently sending
out over 5,000 greetings to people over 100 years
and expectations are that this will rise to 75,000
by 2050. With regards to our profession, it is quite
a daunting thought that in the foreseeable future,
a significant minority of the patients we treat will
be over 100 years old and will have some of their
natural dentition!
‘Retirement is the ugliest word in the language.’
Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961)
James P. Newton
Editor
� 2010 The Author
Journal compilation � 2010 The Gerodontology Society and John Wiley & Sons A/S, Gerodontology 2010; 27: 165–166
166 Editorial