“When a man retires and time is no longer a matter of urgent importance, his colleagues generally present him with a watch.”

Retirement: It’s nice to get out of the rat race, but you have to learn to get along with less cheese.

Never mind 60 or 65, there are some who start their retirement long before they stop working.

“Don’t think of retiring from the world until the world will be sorry that you retire.”

<B>Samuel Johnson </B>

“Life is no brief candle to me. It is a sort of splendid torch which I have got a hold of for the moment, and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations”

                                                                              <B>    George Bernard Shaw</B>

The trouble with retirement? No more sick leave, overseas leave, casual leave, no time-off for trade-union activities, nor any overtime, duty free car, travelling allowance and passage benefits (local situation).

Who has not seen this advert about car tyres: “Don’t retire your tyre, re-tyre it”! It reflects very well the modern philosophy of active retirement. By this is meant, on the one hand, relinquishing responsibilities and posts (making way for others) and on the other, starting new activities for making use of acquired experience in the service of society, of self and family.

An element of real democracy is that those who are affected by them should make decisions. For example, the decision about extension of the age of retirement to 65 should be made mainly by (or even only by) those now aged 45 to 60, in all fairness. It’s their life, after all! Some may wish to retire at 55(early retirement) or at 60 with full pension as an acquired right, others may wish to continue well into their mid-sixties or even seventies if they feel fit. Still others may even wish to defend their right to work by going to court, as in Australia, to try and get discrimination on the basis of age to become unlawful. Where such cases have been won, NO mandatory retirement age exists any more. For example, the Federal government in Canada abolished mandatory retirement in the Federal public service in 1992; in Quebec and Manitoba provinces there is no mandatory retirement age. : people work as long as they wish, as long as they are fit and so considered by their employers.

Many if not most mature and old people wish their children well and by extension care for the next and younger generation. Which means, in relation to retirement some of the following conflicting considerations:

• Retiring early so as to liberate posts for younger staff, thus contributing to the fight against unemployment

• Retiring late, so as to continue contributing to wealth creation through long and often invaluable experience

• Retiring late, hence continuing to contribute to pension schemes, instead of going early and living off (assuredly well earned!) retirement pension funds, particularly important for nations with a high proportion of older people and a low natality rate (e.g. Japan, Scandinavia),

• Active retirement, meaning leaving one’s main-line job for new, often part-time, often social or even voluntary work, which allows the retiree to continue putting 30 to 40 years of acquired experience at the service of society,

• Late-life mobility, a small but significant number of people actually retire from their life-long jobs and go straight back to work elsewhere, like footballers transferring from one club to another. Often called the “un-retirees”, they may be in search of new life-styles in later life.

This last consideration brings up the question of planning one’s retirement. Three phases are usually recognised: Pre-Retirement planning, Retirement planning and Post-Retirement planning. Pre-Retirement planning includes identification of retirement lifestyles and taking early measures that will ensure that one saves enough to fulfil those needs and dreams. For many pre-retirement Englishmen such dreams include buying a house in rural France, while for Mauritian émigrés the dream takes the form of a campement by the sea in the motherland! Many manage to have unique lifestyles, enjoying one of the best stages in life. Which is one of the reasons for the outcry against the budget proposal for a National Residential Property Tax, in its present form, as it would directly affect, without due notice, the financial plans of retirees, making some poorer and others in danger of losing the only “patrimoine” they have.

THE UN EXAMPLE: In 1989, the UN Pension Fund decided to recommend to the General Assembly to restore the actuarial imbalance of the Pension Fund. Among these was a proposal to increase the normal retirement age for new participants in the Fund from 60 to 62. The reasons for applying the change only to new staff members related mainly to legal concerns regarding elimination of the right of existing staff members to retire at age 60. As the eventual goal was to have the same mandatory age of separation applicable to all staff, executive directors of UN agencies were expected to demonstrate, to the maximum extent possible, flexibility in considering the retention of staff until age 62.

By resolution 44/185, the GA approved the above recommendation for the UN, making 62 the mandatory age of separation for staff appointed on or after 1 January 1990. Age 60 would continue to apply to staff in service before that date. The net result was that quite a few people still left at 60 but many, generally by choice remained up to 62.The desired effect of these 2 additional years (of work, hence contribution to the Pension Fund, instead of retirement and drawing a pension from the Fund) was successful in consolidating the Fund.

THE DISTANT FUTURE: A recent BBC report claimed “the age of retirement should be raised to 85 by 2050 because of trends in life expectancy”. A perfectly serious scientist made this claim. Shripad Tuljapurkar of Stanford University says anti-ageing advances could raise life expectancy by a year each year over the next two decades. That would put a strain on economies around the world if current retirement ages were maintained, he warned. Dr Tuljapurkar, speaking at the American Association for the Advancement of Science annual meeting said that “People are going to do things they didn’t get round to in their working lives. Current institutions are really not equipped at the moment to deal with such long lives. We are going to have to plan a lot more carefully. But an increase in the retirement age to 85 would bring costs down to today’s levels”.

For the present, in Mauritius, the best solution regarding retirement age seems to be, as is the case of the VRS, a flexible rule allowing voluntary choice of retirement at 60 or 62 or 65 (the full pension remaining available at 60 as per acquired rights). Many more people (you’ll be surprised) will stay on after 60. Further flexibility, as suggested by me some years ago should apply to teachers, Heads of schools and others in similar situations should retire at the end of the term or even year in which they reach the chosen retirement age, so as to reduce disruption during the handing-over process.

<B>Dr.Michael ATCHIA

[email protected]</B>