So long, and thanks for all the work
Civitas, 12 August 2010
A recent survey by Aon has found that only 43% of Britons want to retire and enjoy their golden years in this country, the lowest satisfaction rate in Europe. However, the figures involved don’t add up to anything worthy of pessimism, as they are merely fantasy and ideals.
The report has been pounced upon by some media reporters as a sign of our disillusion about the desirability of the British way of life. They argue that being a pensioner here is the final insult in a long list of Government and social upsets from the cradle to the grave.
Firstly, asking people ‘where do you want to retire to?’ is not really a neutral question. Instead, it is the grown-ups’ equivalent of questioning children on ‘what do you want to be when you’re older?’ The answer to both is fairly irrelevant and this blog is proof that my young desire to be a palaeontologist studying dinosaurs all day has somewhat gone astray.
Similarly, retiring to Spain (Basque country please), which almost a quarter of respondents wanted, would be a mere flight of fancy for all but the most determined. Very few people will, by their retirement, have both the will and means to relocate abroad.
The British choices of Spain and France as top destinations are hardly surprising either. After over 40 years of slogging to work in the rain, who wouldn’t want to live in sunshine and warmth in their post-employment freedom? Indeed, some might welcome these stats– with the continual talk of pensioners soon outnumbering the working population, it might be better to have these émigrés venturing away so the government doesn’t have to foot the bill for their care.
Perhaps what we should really be looking at in these figures are the responses from other European nations (7,500 people were interviewed overall). The UK came 9th in the list of countries that respondents wanted to retire to, so it can’t be all bad here (despite the rain). It seems that Britain is perceived rather favourably, being the only country on the list not thought of as warm and sunny bar the Netherlands and Switzerland.
Interestingly, the survey also shows that the Danish and Norwegians, with 74% and 63% of respondents respectively, have a favourable view of retiring at home. This may be due to the social security systems available in these countries. Despite paying a higher income tax rate than many other countries, workers in these Scandinavian areas have a positive domestic retirement to look forward to and can trust that the state will look after them. Perhaps this is why the UK is rated so highly internationally as the location to retire to.
Perhaps it is time we stopped complaining about the weather and took stock of what we have to offer our retirees.