Why Where You Live Depends On When You Retire

Where you live and work is a big deciding factor in when the government says you can retire, reveals new research.

Many workers in the Asia pacific can retire up to 10 years earlier than their counterparts in more developed Western countries.

Indonesia, Thailand and India and are among those with a state retirement age of just 55 years old.

In Malaysia, The Philippines and South Africa, early retirement age is 60 years old.

While you can forget about giving up work in Australia, Spain and the United States until you are 67 years old.

Italy and Ireland are not a lot better, with a state retirement age of 66 years old.

Gender also plays a role in deciding retirement. In many countries, women can kick off their shoes and relax into retirement an average five years before men.

Problems for companies

In China, woman can retire as young as 50, while many others set the age at 55 years old – like Pakistan, Saudi Arabia Vietnam and Venezuela.

The figures come from an analysis of global retirement ages by benefits firm Mercer.

“Multinational companies have to contend with masses of complicated and different rules about retirement ages for men and women, whether they operate in two countries or many more countries,” said Samantha Polovina, of Mercer.

“The wide range of rules and regulations can have a big impact on their operations.

“For example, a company with operations in a country where the retirement age is in the early or mid-50s needs to have a flow of younger talent readily available to take the place of senior and experienced workers.

“But in the country next door, the same company might not have to make the same recruitment and training decisions until the similar workers are 10 or 15 years older.”

Different rules

Polovina cited China as one country with especially complicated retirement rules for different workers.

While the official retirement age for men is 60 years old, professional, salaried women can retire at 55 and all other women can retire at 50.

Other retirement anomalies include Morocco, where men who have worked more than five years as miners can retire at 55 years old.

In Pakistan, men can retire at 60 and women at 55, but civil servants can work until they are 62 years old and miners only have to work to 50.

Men can look forward to retirement at 60 in the United Arab Emirates, while women in the private sector work until 55, but those in the public sector work until 60.

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