The Fourth Age
1 May 2008
It used to be that, when people retired, they were said to be part of the third age.
But now we are living so long that the third age has had to be sub-divided.
Many people these days expect to live a healthy and active life right though their sixties and seventies and even into their eighties. The UK population is ageing and people are living longer. We are better off than ever before and the improvements in medical treatments means our life expectancy is increasing all the time as are our expectations of a happy, productive life in retirement.
Hopefully you are still in good health and long may that continue. But the time will come when you may need to get extra help at home or in some cases go into some kind of sheltered or residential care. So it’s important to start planning for the fourth age - your very old age - now.
It isn’t always easy to think about these things. Thinking about ill-health when you are relatively fit and well is, let’s face it, contradictory. But you will need to have some idea of how and where you would want to live and how you are going to pay for it.
You are probably quite aware that Long Term Care can be very expensive, so it’s just as well to try and work out how this could be funded. See the section on Cost of retirement to help you with this.
What’s more, if you suffered a stroke or some other sudden illness, you might need to let others make financial decisions on your behalf, at least on a temporary basis, by getting a Power of Attorney in place.
