By Lisa Taylor, Challenge Factory
Special to the Financial Independence Hub
Recently, Malcolm Hamilton’s C.D. Howe Institute paper, Do Canadians Save Too Little?, challenged the prevailing view that Canadians are not financially prepared for retirement. His Financial Post column summarized the key findings of his paper and highlighted that many of the assumptions made about retirement are not accurate. Canadians are saving and the determination of how much saving is enough is dependent on many non-financial factors. [See also the Hub’s blog on this: JC]
Indeed, the question of “retirement readiness” is more complicated than calculations predicting financial security.
Meaning of “Retirement” has changed
Retirement has changed. Every formal definition of the verb “to retire” focuses on retreat, withdrawal and conclusion. The original meaning of the word included a complete withdrawal from work, a focus on rest or seclusion, a retreat from battle or the time to go to bed. We retire equipment when it is taken out of service. We retire a bond by taking it out of circulation. Continue Reading…