Yesterday I wrote a piece reporting Prudential’s findings that the number of people working past retirement age is set to double in the next decade:
Nearly a quarter of UK businesses predict that their staff will be working beyond the national retirement age within the next decade, as they cannot afford to retire earlier.
Today I was contacted by Croner, a workplace consultancy firm, who said they’ve just done some research that has found the opposite effect: two-thirds of the 1,400 people it surveyed said they didn’t expect to work past retirement age.
Why might this be?
I asked Croner for a breakdown of their survey results to check a few things. The Pru survey had found that people in London and the south-east – where salaries tend to be higher – were expected to retire earlier. Sure enough, of the Croner respondents, the highest proportion of those expecting to retire before 60 was in London and the east.
However this theory didn’t work for those expecting to retire between 61 and 65 – the current state retirement age for men. Those in Yorkshire were the most optimistic, with 51 per cent expecting to retire during that time, compared to just 36 per cent of those in London.
The real reason for the discrepancy, I suspect, lies in the difference between who answered the questions.
The Prudential survey asked finance directors, while the Croner survey asked workers. I imagine finance directors are in a position to take a more realistic view on these things. Most people don’t really understand how little pension support there is for them later in life, so when they’re asked when they expect to retire, they may give the age they hope to retire. Sad but probably true.
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