Britain pioneered the comfortable retirement – but that golden age is coming to an end | Helen McCarthy

The once inexorable rise in retiree living standards since the second world war has broken down. Can we keep the dream alive for future generations? When you think of retirement, what comes to mind? The truth is that this image is now, in large part, the artefact of a bygone age. A long and comfortable retirement starting at 60 or 65 is beginning to look like a collective social experience whose moment has passed.

Retirement in Britain has a surprisingly short history, underpinned by dramatic improvements in older people’s quality of life over the past 50 years. Large public and private bureaucracies first started to enrol long-serving employees into pension schemes from the mid-19th century. In 1909, Britain was the first country to pioneer an old age pension, funded by the state and targeting the poorest, who could claim it from the age of 70. But it was only after the second world war that a period of leisured old age become an ordinary expectation for most British workers. Helen McCarthy The once inexorable rise in retiree living standards since the second world war has broken down.

W hen you think of retirement, what comes to mind? The truth is that this image is now, in large part, the artefact of a bygone age. Retirement in Britain has a surprisingly short history, underpinned by dramatic improvements in older people’s quality of life over the past 50 years. Large public and private bureaucracies first started to enrol long-serving employees into pension schemes from the mid-19th century. In 1909, Britain was the first country to pioneer an old age pension, funded by the state and targeting the poorest, who could claim it from the age of 70.

But it was only after the second world war that a period of leisured old age become an ordinary expectation for most British workers. The state pension had been made universal by Clement Attlee’s Labour government, alongside expanding occupational pension schemes and rising home ownership. Can anything be done to keep the dream of a comfortable retirement alive for future generations? When you think of retirement, what comes to mind? The truth is that this image is now, in large part, the artefact of a bygone age.

Retirement in Britain has a surprisingly short history, underpinned by dramatic improvements in older people’s quality of life over the past 50 years. Large public and private bureaucracies first started to enrol long-serving employees into pension schemes from the mid-19th century. In 1909, Britain was the first country to pioneer an old age pension, funded by the state and targeting the poorest, who could claim it from the age of 70. But it was only after the second world war that a period of leisured old age become an ordinary expectation for most British workers. Britain pioneered the comfortable retirement – but that golden age is coming to an end | Helen McCarthy