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NZ best for Golden Years - 9 April 2009

Many people dream of retiring abroad to a country with a slower pace of life, cheaper living costs and far more sunshine than in the UK - and now a new study has found that pensioners in New Zealand are looked after far better by the Government than in any other country, including the world’s richest nations and here in the UK.

For UK retirees, Spain and France are often popular choices. Not only are they close to home, they also have a well established property purchase process and excellent lifestyle and cost of living benefits. Spain and the South of France also offer many more days of sunshine each year than the UK does.

New Zealand may not seem like an obvious choice to retire to, as it is about as far away from the UK as you could possibly be. But, new research has discovered that New Zealand’s older citizens enjoy the best treatment by the Government than in any other country.

The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) compared the income level of retirement age New Zealanders to median disposable income levels and found that just two per cent of New Zealand’s retirement-age population was classed as being below the poverty line.

Just 13 of the 30 OECD countries surveyed had poverty rates of less than 10 per cent among older people, putting New Zealand way ahead of the rest. The Netherlands and the Czech Republic also scored well.

Twenty-seven per cent of over-65s in Australia are below the poverty line and the United States also scored poorly.

But, this is obviously referring to New Zealand citizens and things may be different if you were to emigrate there as a retiree. For starters, it’s far harder to emigrate as a retiree to New Zealand as they don’t have a specific retirement visa like some other countries do.

If you are aged 56 years or older and do not have close family already resident in New Zealand, then you may have to look into applying for a long term business visa or investor visa, which means you invest in a New Zealand company.

Another option would be applying for a visitor’s permit. Many retirees spend six months a year in New Zealand on a visitor’s permit and then spend the other six months of the year back in their home country or in another country.

Despite the survey suggesting that life is sweet for retirees in the land of the long white cloud, several organisations who work with older people have come out of the woodwork and said the study does not reflect the financial reality of New Zealand’s retirees. Retirees also don’t get the free medical treatment that they would get if they had stayed in the UK.

 

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