heading for retirement.......

After working more than 40 years of my life the time has come to retire.......

We don't realise how privileged we are nowadays, to be able to retire at a relatively young age and enjoy our last years in leisure  In most countries, the idea of retirement is of recent origin, being introduced during the 19th and 20th centuries. Previously, low life expectancy and the absence of pension arrangements meant that most workers continued to work until death. Germany was the first country to introduce retirement in the 1880s.

Here is a nice graph of the ages of retirement and workers in the UK, the USA and Holland:

Country	Early retirement age	Normal retirement age	Employed, 55–59	Employed, 60–64	Employed, 65–69	Employed, 70+
Netherlands	60	65	53%	22%	3%	0%
United Kingdom	none	65	69%	40%	10%	2%
United States	62	67	66%	43%	20%	5%

No wonder I like living here :~)

Other counties can be seen HERE