Lex Anteinternet: Retirement

I ran this item back in March of 2014:

Lex Anteinternet: Retirement: If you are in business, or read business news, or listen to any type of commentary at all, you're going to hear a lot about retirem...

Something that I wasn't aware of then, and have only learned recently, is that the average American retirement age falls in between 58 years old and 62 years of age.  62 is when the generational cohort I'm in can first take Social Security, which explains part of that.

But not all of it.

Ill health, whether it be the natural or unnatural deterioration of the body, and mental factors, including the natural deterioration of the mind in some circumstances, or the cumulative impact of years of stress on others, or unemployment of older workers, all play a significant factor.  In this way, perhaps, we're closer to earlier generations in regards to the close out of our work years than we might suppose.

It's interesting, but perhaps natural, that we've come to associate "retirement age" with age 65, which for generations has been the age at which a person is fully eligible for Social Security.  Interestingly, that same age was adopted by the Canadian government for its full retirement.  65 is not the age for post Boomer retirees in these regards in the US any longer, however.  In my generational cohort its age 67.  In the UK it was age 65 for men and age 60 for women for eons, although that is going up.  65 is common in many European countries as well, as are differential ages for men and women, with women's uniformly being younger where the ages are not the same.  So, we have to assume that placing retirement in the 60s is for a real reason, as so many nations do it.  After all, if countries as divergent as Vietnam (60 men/55 women) and Ireland (66 men and women) take this approach, it must mean something.

It doesn't mean that a person will be in super health, or even capable of working, at that age, however.  Retirement sites like to show healthy couples in their 60s enjoying life in exciting ways, but many people by their late 50s are in pretty darned bad shape.

All of which may mean nothing at all, or which may be serious food for thought.