"When I leave work I don't plan to sit around for 20 or 30 years."
"I work just as well as my younger colleagues, but increasingly I want more flexibility to pursue my passions in life."
These comments, taken word for word from a major new global study, tell us how a growing number of people feel throughout the world, particularly in the more developed countries.
"So long as they are healthy and able, people increasingly want to do something active in their retirement rather than just resting," says the study, based on a survey in 20 countries and territories that together account for 62 percent of the world's population.
The study, "The Future of Retirement: What the world wants," draws on interviews with 21,329 adults 18 and over and 6,000 employers. The interviews were conducted by the research firm Harris Interactive in Brazil, Canada, China, England, Egypt, France, Germany, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, Poland, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Sweden, Turkey and the United States.
Among the findings:
- People believe - rightly so, we add - that family, friends and fitness are more important than money for a happy old age.
- People no longer believe that governments alone will provide for them in old age. They would favor "government-enforced" savings, that is, laws requiring them to save more for retirement.
- People overwhelmingly reject mandatory retirement because of age. As they get older, they want employers to offer "flexible" working conditions, such as shorter workweeks and the ability to rotate between periods of work and leisure.
- Employers feel employees should be able to work at any age as long as they can do a good job, and say older workers are just as productive as younger ones.
- But in all regions of the world, too little is being done to retain the skills and experience of older workers.
"Few employers seem to have grasped the impact aging populations could have on economic productivity - and indeed their own businesses," said the study, which was authored by the University of Oxford's Institute of Aging in England and funded by HSBC, a London-based financial firm that employs 284,000 people in 76 countries and territories worldwide. HSBC sponsored a smaller survey last year that covered 10 countries and did not include employers.
This year's study, which continues to redefine the concept of retirement worldwide, shows that people "have their heads screwed on right" but employers "are a few ticks behind" and governments lag more, said Ken Dychtwald, chairman of the San Francisco-based think tank Age Wave and special adviser on global aging to HSBC.
The reason: While more people want to be active and engaged in retirement - a healthy trend - employers don't always provide the opportunities older workers seek. And government regulations often penalize older workers (for example, not being able to draw a pension from a company for which you still work part-time).
Also, while the United States is a notable exception by making age discrimination illegal, "in many parts of the world people are simply ushered out the door" and forced to quit work when they reach a certain age, Dychtwald said.
To be sure, many people in the less-developed countries don't even get to retire. "Of those who do, the majority are in need of rest after a life of hard labor and poor health," the report said. In five of the countries surveyed - Poland, Indonesia, Singapore, Brazil and Turkey - most people still see retirement as a time for rest and relaxation. But in the United States, 64 percent see it as "an opportunity for a new chapter in life," as do most people in Canada, England and France.
"Perhaps it is a time for a new career, take up a new hobby, fall in love again," Dychtwald said. "People are beginning to think of retirement as a time for reinvention."
© 2006 TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES, INC.
