Some expats are on a brief adventure, while others never plan to come home – and pension figures tend to show the ‘stay for life’ destinations
A good sign of a country’s long-term attractiveness to expats is how many of them opt to sign up for pensions in their host country.
Doing so demonstrates an intention to stay once a career has ended – and Canada tops the table with the highest number of British expats (86 per cent) who have taken out pensions, according to HSBC’s Expat Explorer Survey 2013.
The second highest figure is for Australia (80 per cent) with the third being the US (75 per cent). All three countries are popular destinations for emigrating Brits and enjoy high standards of living for retirees. They were all well above the global average of 45 per cent, calculated by HSBC.
Supporting the pension figures are statistics that show expats tend to stay longer-term in Canada, Australia and the US than other destinations. All three countries have a high number of “expat lifers” – those who relocated more than 10 years ago.
Nearly eight in 10 expats (79 per cent) moved to Canada before the year 2000, and the same is seen in Australia (61 per cent) and the US (67 per cent). The global average is just 39 per cent.
Elsewhere, more than half of expats living in countries such as Russia (63 per cent), Germany (57 per cent), Switzerland (55 per cent) and New Zealand (53 per cent) have made retirement provisions in their host country.
When it comes to having the world’s best state pension scheme, Denmark sits top of the country rankings, according to the Melbourne Mercer Global Pension Index, which compares 20 countries with major retirement schemes.
Australia, which runs a national pension fund called Superannuation (or Super for short), comes third. The US slipped out of the top 10 for the first time in the survey’s five-year history while Canada’s pension plan (CPP) ranked sixth.
