What caught my eye this week.
If you traveled back to the year 1900 and told people that, in 125 years, adults would live 30 years longer than they did, the late Victorians would be astonished—and likely envious.
Another three decades to work, rest, and play!
Think of all those extra Saturdays down the mines or in the sweatshop factories they’d enjoy. And all those extra lumps of coal for Christmas.
Well here we are in 2025 – expecting to live into our 80s and almost all with lives of far less physical hardship – and yet it’s rare to read a story about increasing longevity that isn’t tainted with doom.
I agree politicians would struggle to deliver a good news message about a population of older yet healthier citizens remaining productive for many more years. Disinformation is off the charts today.
And yet as Andrew Oxlade writes in This Is Money this week:
Research cited in the IMF’s World Economic Outlook, based on samples in 41 countries, suggested the average 70-year-old in 2022 had the same cognitive ability as a 53-year-old in 2000.
It is a remarkable improvement for such a short period. The report, published last month, suggested such improvements mean those employed at 70 see a 30 per cent uplift in earnings.
Oxlade explores the financial implications of longer and more productive lives. Like myself, he doesn’t see getting out of work entirely as always the best goal for most people – or even a possibility for many.
But having a decent Chasing Cows fund brings more than just an all-out card:
Optionality can help future-proof you from the stick of rising pension ages. And it is always good to have options, as you don’t know how you will feel about life and work in the future.
In any event it’s hard to see – and given the implications, you wouldn’t want to see – State pension ages not being higher in the future.
Still crazy after all these years
Indeed Denmark has just raised its retirement age to 70 – the highest in Europe.
The BBC reports:
Since 2006, Denmark has tied the official retirement age to life expectancy and has revised it every five years. It is currently 67 but will rise to 68 in 2030 and to 69 in 2035.
The retirement age at 70 will apply to all people born after 31 December 1970.
Meanwhile the age at which you can claim a UK state pension will start to rise again next year. It will hit 67 by March 2028.
I’m caught squarely by the move, unlike my co-blogger the wizened old Accumulator. He’s just snuck under the wire.
Good for me! Personally I’ll be delighted at having to wait a couple more years to access my State pension if that’s the cost of having a few more years to enjoy this beautiful planet.
Cynics will retort that I say this from a position of privilege. I’ve got my (hard saved and carefully invested…) capital at my back. I don’t expect to retire into near-poverty after a hard life of earning nothing much.
That’s true. But firstly to some extent you make your own luck – we all understand around here the power of saving even small amounts over a lifetime. (Remember the Tin Can millionaire? He was Swedish, incidentally.)
Secondly, I’m not convinced that the happiest people are always those with the most money.
We all know counterexamples – people who seem to get by on little more than thin air with a relish for life – albeit I’d rather not take my chances with them!
Your mileage may vary. Fair enough. But do you really want to be thinking like the person quoted in The Guardian headline this week who called the pressure to delay retirement: “Ludicrous and unfair”?
From the article:
Although some thought the IMF’s idea was good, an overwhelming majority expressed outrage, typically describing the concept that older people should retire later to ease fiscal pressures as “disgusting”, “ludicrous” and “unfair”.
“Seventy is not the new 50. That’s propaganda,” said a 63-year-old NHS admin worker from Dundee. “Having worked since the age of 18, retirement cannot come soon enough for me. I find travelling for work stressful and long for a time when my days are my own. I am tired.”
For many more working class people, retirement will indeed be a relief.
But I question whether it will be the panacea they hope for, given they’re mostly going to be financially pressured, and that in at least some cases they lacked the imagination to see it coming for the past four decades.
It’s a great thing we’re living longer, healthier lives. Let’s plan for it and look forward to it.
Let’s invest as if we’ll make it to 100!
Have a great weekend.