The Complete Guide to Executive Compensation 3/E, 3rd Edition

RETIREMENT

For many, age 65 is considered an appropriate age for retirement, although some retire earlier (if they have accumulated sufficient money) and others work later either because of financial need or because they like what they do. Most give credit to Germany’s Chancellor Otto von Bismarck for setting this retirement age in 1883. He did so to stop Marxists from taking over the country by promising widespread social programs. Bismarck was quite clever—he knew that few would live to that age. Nonetheless, he set the precedent not only of a retirement age but of government paying people to stop working at that age. It is believed that American Express may have had the first pension plan in the United States (1875) and Metropolitan Life the ...