General Insurance Article - Aegon comment on ONS figures

 “The number of people in retirement has dropped by 265,000 over the five-year period from March to May 2013 to March to May 2018. This is likely to be a growing trend as recently our own research* indicated that more than one in four people think they will be working either full or part time at age 70.

 “The increase in the employment rate among women over the last few years due to the changes to the state pension age for women has also contributed to this reduction in the number of people retiring and we will start to see this impact on men as well.

 “With the state pension age rising to age 66 for both men and women by 2020, it’s understandable that more people will defer their retirement in line with state pension age increases. The advantage of remaining in employment for longer is that people can continue to build up more of a private pension, including from employer contributions, this along with delaying taking their pension can make a big difference to their overall retirement prospects.”

 “The number of self-employed shows little change from a year ago at 4.79m or 14.8% of all the people in work. This may mean the movement towards self-employment has stabilised, but as many are not saving in a pension, it doesn’t let the government off the hook from finding a pension solution for the self-employed.”

 *Aegon research: https://www.aegon.co.uk/content/ukpaw/news/one_in_four_peoplethinktheyllbeworkingatage70.html