Letter: Pensions — from Bismarck to Pennsylvania Railroad

Published in the Financial Times.

When the German retirement age was set at 65 in the 1910s, Valentina Romei makes the point that “life expectancy was below 50” (“Five ways demographics are changing the economy”, The Big Read, March 6). In fact, the historical contrast with today is even sharper than you suggest.

When the German state pension system was established by Otto von Bismarck in 1889, he set the retirement age at 70. Bismarck himself was 74 at the time.

The corporate pension plan of the Pennsylvania Railroad in 1900 adopted a mandatory retirement age of 70. Early pension plans of American states likewise set 70 as the pensionable age. Correspondingly, the 1854 hymn, “Work, for the Night is Coming” (sadly no longer in the Methodist hymnal) urged us to keep working “under the sunset skies” and to “Work till the last beam fadeth”.

On average these days, that is a long way past 65.