My father retired from active service last year after more than 30 years in the military. His retirement got me thinking a lot about what it means to retire in Ghana, and whether my expectations of what life post-retirement looks like is realistic.

The life expectation that most people have is that they’ll get an education or learn a trade, earn income, start a family, build a house, educate their children, retire and enjoy evening walks for the rest of their lives while their children go off to live their own lives. While this expectation has always been simplistic, it has never been as atypical as it has become in this age. 

Thanks to an extended education which now often includes professional qualifications and post-graduate degrees, people are marrying at older ages and having kids even later. This has not only resulted in people entering the workforce (by that I mean earning a livable wage) at older ages but also they’re retiring with children much younger than they would’ve been a generation ago. To further complicate the issue, the skyrocketing prices of real estate has made it more difficult to acquire a home or at least has extended the length of time it takes to complete a house way past the retirement age.

The financial implications of these things for retirement are serious. Most people in my generation can expect that they will have to keep working after formal retirement to pay for things like completing a house, healthcare, paying for your children’s (or even grandchildren’s) education, their wedding, rent, cars and other things. Pension payments, which can be roughly half your salary, are most likely going to be inadequate to meet all these costs.

This situation calls for a rethink of our idea about what retirement looks like and how to save for it. Life, work and expenses do not end after retirement. Our financial, mental and physical preparation for retirement needs to be more rigorous than most of us currently think.

This post is, more than anything, a reminder to myself. In the coming months I will be writing more about how to prepare for the new reality of retiring in Ghana. And I hope you will join me in the journey of learning.