Does American prosperity translate into long retirements? Not compared to other developed countries in the world. Flowing Data borrowed OECD numbers on life expectancy and age of retirement to calculate the average number of years in retirement for men and women across many different countries. The portion of each bar with the line is the average number of years working, while the non-lined portion represents years in retirement.
Largely because of life expectancy, women enjoy more years than men in all states except Turkey, but the number of years varies quite tremendously, from an average of zero years for men in Mexico, to an average of 26 years for women in Austria and Italy. The United States is way down on this list, not doing so well relatively after all.
Comments 14
Rachel — May 6, 2011
This is really interesting. I wonder what sociological factors end up contributing significantly to a longer retirement. Is it having more vacation time during yoru working years? Perhaps living in a society that values healthy living and quality food. I guess it's just another thing to add to my research list.
Brandon — May 6, 2011
I find this especially interesting when so many state government employees are facing the possibility of losing retirement benefits and/or having the retirement age raised.
Ian Welsh — May 6, 2011
What really stands out, actually, is how much more time women get (because they live longer, generally speaking.)
Grizzly — May 6, 2011
"The United States is way down on this list, not doing so well relatively after all."
This assumes that retirement is the desired state, which isn't necessarily the case. It may be that many Americans work longer because they want to. I hate to use anecdotal evidence, but my mother is 68, and still working. She could have retired a long time ago, as my dad did, but she likes working.
eeka — May 6, 2011
It seems a bit misleading to be thinking of "Years of retirement" = "Life expectancy" - "Retirement age."
Life expectancy is calculated based on an average of the ages of death of all people in the population, so it includes all those babies who die in the NICU, kids who die in accidents, etc. If you instead look at just the people over 50, their life expectancy is going to be higher than in the 65-75 range or whatever range you're quoting for your population, because the people who are bringing down the average aren't included (since they've already died). Insurance tables on life expectancy will show that a particular population is, say, 70 overall, but once you've lived until 5 is 77 on average, once you've lived until 30 is 80 on average, etc.
Decius — May 7, 2011
Gender: color coded for your convience. At least it's a dark pink...