CHARLES HANDY: I have been very impressed with the idea from the Geneva Association, which is the research association of the insurance industry in Europe - of the Four Pillars. They say, and I really believe this is very important, that if you want an interesting and satisfactory and happy Third Age, you need four pillars of financial support. Finance isn?t everything in life, but it?s quite important. The four pillars are these. The first is a state pension - now that?s going to be pretty minimal; the calculations in Britain show that in 2030 - that?s in 30 years time - the state pension will be worth 8% only of average male earnings. The second pillar will be an occupational pension, if you?re lucky enough to have it. In Britain, one is happy to say 60% of the population are likely to have some sort of occupational pension. Again, not enough in itself, but an interesting contribution. But 40% won?t and in many other countries it will be even less. In France, it will be only about 10% who will have an occupational pension. And, of course, in some of the rest of the world almost nobody will have that sort of pension. So that?s a second pillar. The third pillar is your savings. Well, OK, if you?re rich when you?re young, but increasingly we leave life, working life, well-paid life earlier on so that savings are diminished. Of course, what?s quite interesting now, again for the first time in history, when we?re about 55 or 60, we will probably inherit something from our parents, probably a house that they bought quite cheaply - never thought that they were rich and they?ve lived long enough. So that when we?re 55, when we don?t really need it - except for our pension - we will actually get some inheritance. And the fourth pillar which will still be necessary is part-time work of some sort or other - which earns money. And the Geneva Association says, quite sensibly, that if you have four pillars you have a chain, and you can be comfortable. If you have three pillars, you?ve got a stool and you?ve got to balance yourself a little more carefully. If you?ve got two pillars, it?s pretty precarious. And if you?ve got one pillar - well, have you ever tried living on a stick? I mean, it ain?t gonna be very easy. And so I think all our aims as persons and as States should be to provide Four Pillars of comfortable finance in our Third Age.
