Retirement is tricky.
Not only do you have to have enough money to not work, but you have to decide if retirement is actually for you.
Maybe, if you don't have a job, you'll be bored, unfulfilled and aimless.
All such factors play into recently released figures that show people in countries all over the world are retiring later for a myriad of reasons.
In Canada, the average age of retirement was 60.6 in 2000.
By 2020, that had crept up 4.37% to 63.25.
The biggest upward swing in average retirement age was in Bulgaria where, from 2000 to 2020, it went from 56 to 63, a bump of 13.26%.
Thirty-eight of the 51 countries included in the study saw average retirement age climb, while in 13 countries, people have been retiring earlier.
The biggest drop at 8.9% was in Colombia where people in 2000 were 69.7 when they retired and by 2020 were 63.5.
A scan down the list shows 2020's youngest average retirement age is in South Africa, where poeple are calling it quits at 58.2, while the oldest average is in Indonesia where you have to stick it out to 68.95.
With the latest figures being from 2020, there might be changes already on the retirement scene in 2024.
The pandemic, inflation and up-and-down investment markets may mean people are even worse off financially and delaying retirement even more.
The retirement age trends study data comes from www.agecalculator.com, which crunched numbers provided by the Paris-based Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, the international agency that shapes policies for prosperity, equality and opportunity for all.
Agecalculator.com itself is a simple website that you can plug a date of birth into and you get the age in years, months, weeks, days, hours and seconds.
"The trend of retirement age increasing across many nations reflects a complex interplay of various factors," reads the agecalculator.com news release.
"Some of these include the extension of people's life expectancy, which has increased thanks to medical advancements, economic pressures that translate into people not being able to retire comfortably because of the rising cost of living, and shifting demographics, such as declining birthrates and aging populations."
Much has been made of retirement lately.
It used to be that people wanted to retire as early as possible to do what they wanted, when they wanted how they wanted.
Remember the Freedom 55 campaign by London Life Insurance Company launched in 1984 that ran for 25 years encouraging people to plan and save for early retirement?
To many that's an unattainable goal.
Plus, people started to realize if they were to live for 30 years after retirement, they could very well run out of cash.
The cost of living, led by soaring house prices, is high and many haven't saved enough to retire early.
Plus, even if you do have enough money, you should enter retirement cautiously at any age.
People need purpose and if you suddenly stop working you might be bored or start to feel pointless.
After all, there's only so much travel, golf and pickleball that you can do.
For some, the ideal retirement is semi-retirement, going part-time, so you can't still have that purpose and satisfaction, but that extra time off to go to Mexico or hit the links.
Or, it could be retiring from your existing job and working on a passion project or volunteering.
Thumbnail photos by Esther Ann and Harli Marten on Unsplash.
