When can people retire in your country?

Well good on China, I think this is a reasonable age for retirement, at the moment here in Australia the retirement age has been put up to 65 but the Government here want to put it up to 70 and there has been suggestions by the opposition that it should be 75, I think making people work to these ages is cruel and nasty...

In the United States, you can retire whenever you can because you are basically responsable for preparing for your own retirement. If you work at a big company or for the government, they will offer what is called a 401(K) Retirement Plan. (you can set one up yourself through a bank) Usually, small portions are taken out of your paycheck and placed into your 401(k) account. Sometimes, the company will also either match or give a portion and put it into the account as well. This is the money you recieve when you retire. If you haven't prepared for your retirement and you have grown unable to work, you may recieve assistance from social security.

In most western countries the retirement age is 65, this was set back around 1880 or so in Germany I believe. It was set at 65 at a time when the average life span was 40ish. The people that set it up, never expected to have to pay the pensions they offered. Then later in the 1930's when North America was setting up their retirement ages, they used the same age, because, they still didn't expect people to live long enough to have to pay them, it wasn't until after the second world war, and people started to become health nuts, that our average life span increased to beyond the retirement age, and since it is law it is a hassle to get it changed. So they leave it, however, most people can't afford to retire at such a young age. Most people have to work beyond this in order to survive. I heard not so long ago that the realistic retirement age is 75 or so. So many people are living past 100 now a days. In Canada, we have what are Called RRSP's as apposed to the 401K that you get in the United States, we also have the Canadian Pension Plan. Neither of these will be as high as when we were working though, the government assumes, that we will be pretty much debt free by the time we retire, and we hope to be, but sometimes this is not the case, generally our own fault, if you can call ignorance your own fault. So we must keep working until all our debts are paid, and we have a savings that we can pay our recurring bills with and also buy food. Cheers.