Just 29% to stop working altogether in retirement

The survey which is based on interviews with 16,000 people in fifteen countries found that 36% of people in the UK anticipate they will continue to work for a while part time or on temporary contracts while a further 14% hope to continue working in some capacity throughout retirement.

In contrast, Western European workers are more likely to view retirement as an end to working life.  In the Netherlands for example 33% of people expect to stop working when they retire, while the figures for Sweden (36%), France (51%) and Spain (52%) were notably higher.

David Macmillan, Managing Director at Aegon UK said:

“The Government’s decision to provide greater pensions flexibility sits well with the plans of many workers who see retirement not as the day they stop working, but the point at which they scale back their hours. Many of these people are likely to start drawing some income from their pension in order to supplement their part time earnings. The fact the Government is also allowing people to continue making pension contributions of up to £10,000 each year, whilst taking a pension means people can continue to top up their pension pot whilst drawing an income.”

People will have more choices about how they take their income, but the decisions they face about how best to do this will potentially be more complicated. For that reason it is worrying that just 12% of people have a financial plan for retirement written down while 39% of people don’t have any plan.

Many people are likely to continue working into retirement in some capacity but the words people most associate with retirement are still overwhelmingly positive. 48% of people most associate the word ‘leisure’ with retirement, closely followed by ‘freedom’ (47%) and then ‘enjoyment’ (34%) and opportunity (23%). This compares against the 15% who most associate retirement with ‘insecurity’, ‘boredom’ (14%) or ‘poverty’ (13%).

David Macmillan continues: “We are living longer and many people can expect to spend twenty or thirty years in retirement. As a result it is not surprising that many people intend to work part time in retirement and balance flexible working against leisure and activities they’ve always wanted to do. However, increased flexibility means people have more choice about how they take their pension income and it will become increasingly important that people have a plan in mind.”