Transcript

A new chapter in your life: Victoria Lewis at TEDxGrenoble 2014

now you may recognize the uniform and you may recognize the period in which this Photograph was taken do you recognize the face no actually you wouldn't it's my grandfather so my grandfather um Sydney Odin he was born on the 6th of May uh 1908 so today would have been his birthday and he would have been 10 6 but he didn't quite make it to that age he he passed away anyway he was uh 74 and at the outbreak of the second World War uh he already had five children so he didn't have to go to the front line and fight but he did have to stay in the UK and play his part and at the end of the second world war he went home uh had two more children he had seven children in total and became a self-employed uh Builder and plasterer now my grandfather he he didn't own his own home and he certainly didn't have a pension it wasn't until 1948 when the UK introduced Universal social security cover but for my grandfather unfortunately it was too little and too late so I think it's probably fair to say that he led a rather Frugal life and was probably poor hey this good-looking chap here is my dad my father and he was born in 1937 he's 76 now um he started working when he was 16 and he retired at 65 and the reason he retired at 65 was that was the age in which he could receive his UK State Pension so he worked for 49 years and he during that time he paid into the state pension and some Company pension schemes so now he's married to my mom obviously um he's in receipt of his pension and I'd say it's a fairly average pension but he does own his own home and he does have some savings it's me so I was born in 1970 I'm 43 and I started working when I was 18 and at that time when I started working in the UK a woman could receive her State Pension at the age 60 but that was 20 odd years ago and now uh I can't get my pension until I'm 66 but in fact it'll probably be later than that probably nearer when I'm 70 like my father I own my own home with a mortgage unfortunately and there's probably no surprise for you but I have Investments and I save I'm a financial adviser it's like uh you don't often go to the dentist and find your dentist has got no teeth I accept now that I'm the sole person responsible for my financial future and I've decided I'm going to retire at 50 isn't she gorgeous this is my daughter India and she was born in 2008 so she's five she's not working yet but she does have a bank account in Investments I'm a good mom uh she's educated here in France she's bilingual so I suspect uh she'll go off to un University in another country she may live and work in another country and in fact I think Mobility for her generation would be much more common actually I did ask her what she wants to do as a job and she wants to be a TV star can you see the evolution in pensions in just in my family in four generations can you see that okay so I want to now touch on some of the problems we see in the world with regard to pensions three main things here and I'm going to go through them in detail the first thing is that we're living longer so there's probably no surprise 65 5 years ago the average life expectancy was 65 but if we have a look at some numbers here these are the life expectancy rates for males females and married couples and you can see just taking the first one example a male age 65 today has a high probability of reaching 80 females a a greater possibility because of course we live longer yeah and interestingly a married couple 65 has an 88% chance or probability of reaching 80 so there's probably a moral behind that story that we must stay married and of course what this means is we have to plan for our pension for a longer period of time I'm going to talk to you about dependency ratios this is a tool in which governments can analyze the population in their country and we can see the number of dependents which are clarified as people under 16 and over 75 compared with the working population so a ratio uh is the number of dependents per hundred of workers and as you can see in America the ratio is fairly the average and it's made up equally generally equally between children and we'll call them the old age the situation is quite similar in the UK and in France if we look at Japan there's a very very high dependency ratio and the dependents are mainly the older generation and if we look at the other end of the spectrum we look at India similar dependency ratio to the US but look at that massive waiting towards children so we're going to see an enormous Baby Boom in India in the future like we've never seen before so what does this mean when we have a high dependency ratio it's a problem a real problem for governments actually it's a problem for workers because it's the workers who maintain the Social Security pay payments so they have all the burden the second problem in the world today is that the role of the governments uh has changed governments have encouraged if not forced us to look after our own pensions and in some countries they help us and encourage us to do this by giving for example tax relief on the payments we make into our pensions and if we don't look after ourselves in retirement then the government is going to do two things they're either going to reduce your pension or increase your taxes and how do you feel about that the third problem in the world today is that the way we work has changed people are starting to work later in life because they want to complete a full-time education go to university more people are self-employed more people are changing jobs more regularly with which means that they may not be eligible for for example Company pension schemes and what this means is that planning for your retirement is getting tougher and tougher now when I talk to people about their their pension planning I can clearly categorize two type of people the first ones will'll call the pessimists and you can probably gather they've got very negative views and these are the sort of things they say to me when I say you should start preparing for your pension I think my grandfather definitely said the first one and probably said the second as well and those same pessimists when they think about what their pension or what their retirement is going to look like these are the sort of comments they make again very negative and that negativity means that that they lack a desire to do anything they'll probably keep what money they have in cash it probably won't do anything in fact however on a more positive note I do meet some people who are positive and uh we'll call them the optimists and they when we talk about planning for their retirement it's very high on their list of priorities and they're the sort of things I'll save and again those optimists when they think about what their retirement might look like in the future these are the sort of comments I hear and I probably would concur with all those do you have an idea now which category you might fit into can you identify with either of those categories I think retirement though means different things to different people it's probably globally accepted that it means it's a time uh when you spend more time with your family and friends you do something physically you be physically active mentally stimulating maybe take up a new project a new hobby for me personally I think retirement means freedom happiness relaxation and no stress old is the new Young I've put that I do believe old is the new Young there has been a tendency for us to encourage people to retire early and perhaps that was to tackle youth unemployment but really people who continue to work and we'll call them the over 65s they have so much experience and we we need to stop this experience draining away they're motivated reliable loyal the older generation as well do contribute massively to society because in retirement they continue to spend money they pay their taxes we need that and I also see a change in the older generation in families I see more and more people more grandparents looking after grandchildren paying perhaps for their grandchildren's education so I really do think old is the new Young let's broaden the Outlook now let's have a look at some facts around the world this list up here shows us where most people feel their pensions should be paid from now the top one up there is the government that's a very very strong feeling here in France that the government should pay for your retirement in China it's the complete opposite they don't think at all that the government should pay for them unbelievably people still pay the play the lottery and think that's going to look after them when they're older and I think investment should actually be a little bit higher up on that list so I suppose the debate that we have at the moment is who should pay for a retirement is it the society or is it the individual I don't know what you think some figures up here these are the general figures the age tranch in which people generally retire around the world between 57 and 61 there are some exceptions for example in Turkey women often retire at 48 men in the us retire at 65 and as you can see again women generally retire earlier than men but I think we should reject this idea of being forced to retire by governments and by companies at a certain date at a certain age surely we should all retire when we want to when we desire to this is research done by the oecd they looked at um 34 countries that make up the OCD and they found that on average a male retirement will last 18 years women a little bit longer the worrying thing is is that most people feel as though the money I their pension is going to run out halfway through their retirement so taking that as an example someone retiring a male after nine years they're going to have no more money left it's a bit worrying really again this is Global Research it does take into account developing and developed countries and this is the figure at the top 25,000 uh Euros this is the figure that people feel that they're going to need in retirement to have a comfortable retirement comfortable is the key word there not have any luxuries not be poor and to obtain that you need roughly a figure of €360,000 now have you thought about how much you're going to need in retirement does anybody know when I think about my situation I think well I'll probably need 75% of what I earn at the moment it's an idea for me in India and the country of India people say they need to have 98% of what they earn so for people who do want to embrace their financial lifestyle their financial future these are a few things that they can do retire uh sorry save as early as possible in the UK generally people start saving at 25 save more save save and save it's important as well that when you save you don't just keep your money in cash because cash the value of cash will be eroded away the long in the long term by inflation I think everybody needs to educate themselves a little bit more as well go to seminars read books ask for help and the last one there is indeed take take advice from professional advisers it's not very common in France actually for people to take Financial advice because again there is this view that in France the state will look after you but I'll show you the effect of using a financial advisor re research shows us that generally speaking people who use the help of professional will acrw more money in fact they'll double their money with a financial advisor and the figures at the bottom there that shows that if you're saving on a regular basis without the help of professional people tend to save 50 EUR a month but with an advisor they save a lot more as I said in France people don't save very often the most common place where we find regular Savers is actually in Asia and they tend to be uh married full-time workers and male the problem is we believe that only 50% of the population actually do review and make plans for their pension the 50% that don't do anything they say well yes I've got some ideas in my head I'm thinking about some numbers but it's just not good enough so as I've explained we know we live living longer dependency ratios are getting higher the governments are going to be under pressure and they're going to push that pressure onto families we think that we want to pass on wealth to the Next Generation but if we're not careful we're going to be passing on debt so are you all motivated to change are you going to start saving I hope so thank you very much than