Due to a combination of changing UK demographics and the dramatic financial downturn, it now appears that more than two-thirds of the baby boomers of the UK retirees are facing a future that will entail working past what was always the pre-determined retiral age (65 for men and 60 for women). And, the truth be told, no one is too unhappy about it. As the situation appears at the moment, many should-be retirees will either continue to work full or part-time and even some who have officially retired have decided to return to their workplace where, to their considerable surprise, they are being welcomed with open arms.

The reason for this shift is that UK employers are beginning to realize that the country is in the middle of an unprecedented demographic shift, with the numbers of young work age people dwindling, as the older people in the community are living longer and healthier lives and have gathered a life-time experience in the work place; experience which, for many years, might have been needlessly jettisoned. Nowadays, as Britain starts to see the beginning of its economic recovery, they might be sorely needed.

This fact has not gone unnoticed among those who were facing their retirement age with financial worries hanging over their heads, that of decreasing property values and decimated pension funds. The realization that people can now expect to live until at least 75 makes the idea of retiring at 65 seem a little premature. In the Britain of the 21st century people are marrying later and bringing children into the world in their thirties, which means that by the time their children become financially independent, retirement is already coming at them fairly fast, with no real time to accumulate the hundreds of thousands of pounds that they will need to supplement their state pension.

Currently the default retirement age (DRA) is becoming an increasing bone of much contention for workers and employees alike. As a result of pressure, the Government has brought forward to next year a review of the legislation which compels employers to forcibly retire people at the age of 65.

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Tags: baby boomers, British Economy, Credit Crunch, default retirement age, DRA, economic recovery, Economy, employees, Employment, Recession, retirement, UK Economy, UK employers, UK government, UK pensioners

The baby boomers are retiring, and some of them, who placed all of their eggs in one basket, are retiring hurt.

The UK financial turn-down has altered the paths of most people’s lives in the country, but probably none more so, than baby boomers. This significant group of people, born in the five years after World War Two ended drove the UK economy forward in the seventies, eighties and nineties to reach the highest levels of prosperity and stability the Great Britain has ever known.

Encouraged by Margaret Thatcher, people were encouraged to acquire their own properties, mostly for a nest egg when retirement time came around, and with hopefully a little left over to provide for the children and grandchildren when the time came to depart this astral plane.

Unfortunately the property boom of the first decade of the 21st century shattered their plans. Many of them were hoping to downgrade a little, and while they could have earned a fabulous profit on the property they had bought in the seventies or eighties, they found it impossible to buy smaller properties at a representative value, because they were being snapped up by younger couples who would pay any price to get their feet on the bottom rung of the property ladder.

And when the bubble finally burst, many of them found them living in properties that were far too big for their needs, with all the attendant costs, and the nest egg that they had hoped to enjoy shrinking in value by an average of around £10,000 a year. Overall estimates are that properties owned by baby boomers have fallen in value by almost £30 billion in the last twelve months.

Surveys have shown the population sector that has placed too much reliance on their property asset to fund their retirement come from the East Midlands. However those hailing from the South and particularly London have spread their retirement portfolio.

Even more worrying is the fact that out or the entire UK population above the age of 25, have begun to look into alternative pension arrangements or investment opportunities.

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Tags: baby boomers, British Economy, Credit Crunch, East Midlands, Economics, Economy, Financial News, Margaret Thatcher, Money, Mortgage, Mortgages, property, Recession, UK Recession, World War Two