Retire and get the next plane to Spain

There is an article in today’s FT (Where the sun never sets) about the flood of retired people who are packing their bags and going to live abroad. Much of this article is based on a report produced for Alliance & Leicester International by the Centre for Future Studies. This first hit the press, late last year and was also reported by the Times Online.

The central tenet of the article is that over the next 10 years an extra 2.3m people, over 50, will be leaving Britain to retire abroad. The proportion of UK retirees living overseas could hit one in five by 2020.

Simon Rubinsohn (Chief Economist of Gerrards) is quoted as thinking the Alliance & Leicester International figures a little extreme but he recognises the important consequences of the trend for retiring overseas. "If it is really the case that one in five of our more better-off retirees will go abroad, it's going to have significant implications," he says.

There is no doubt that the retiring overseas is (has) become a real option for many Brits. With the prospect of the winter weather, about to hit the country, I am sure the numbers will rapidly increase. What I would like to know is how the Centre for Future Studies or the Alliance & Leicester International came upon this figure of a possible 20% migration of retired people. No sign of the analysis on either organisation’s web sites.

The thing that makes me a tad suspicious of this type of “research” is the way it so often provides results that are very convenient for the sponsor. You don’t have to look far to see that Alliance & Leicester International is in the business of providing services for people retiring abroad. A press release from the company reads: “thinking of buying a place in the sun?” We then learn that “with the Spanish property market booming, many Brits may be considering buying a place in the sun. However, Alliance & Leicester International Limited, the offshore savings bank, is urging people who are buying property by staged payments to open a euro savings account…………..”

Now I have no gripes with the company. The research article is a legitimate way of getting coverage. What bugs me is the media that quote the results don’t take a more analytical and detached view of the results. This is the second time this week that I have commented about the FT and its lazy journalist habits.