Until my grandmother passed away last year at the age of 91, she and her daughter (my mum, aged 63) were retired at the same time. This lasted for close to half a decade and made it possible for my mum to spend much more time with my grandmother in her final years, visiting her almost daily.
Situations like this are becoming more common and present a great opportunity for people in their 50s and 60s to strengthen their relationships with their elderly parents and relatives. But they also come with financial consequences.
St James’s Place estimates that there are currently 813,000 families with more than one generation retired, a figure that in the next decade is projected to increase by almost a third to 1.1mn. As it stands, numbers are growing faster than previously thought – in 2018, the same study projected that there would be 704,000 multi-retiree families by this year. Whether the trend will continue in the future will also depend on how soon people are able to afford retirement and whether life expectancy progress continues or stalls once again.