The future of pensions

With the passing of defined benefit schemes and recent losses across asset classes, now is the time for our views of retirement to change

Retirement always used to be something of a cliff edge - at work one day and fully retired the next, with a lifetime of weekends to look forward to. Possibly the only souvenirs of a long period of service were a carriage clock and a defined benefit pension scheme. Today it is somewhat different - carriage clocks are passé, as are defined benefit pensions. We are living longer and therefore will spend longer in retirement. Indeed, on 10 December 2008, The Daily Telegraph reported that the over 85s are the fastest-growing age group of the population and there are numerous statistics forec...