Modern retirement was invented in 1889 by a 74-year-old German Chancellor named Otto von Bismarck, who set the eligible age at 70 in a country where the average male life expectancy at birth was aroun

An American who reaches 65 today can expect, on average, to live roughly another 18 to 20 years. The average German born in 1889 — the year the modern state pension was born — was around 40. The retirement age? 70.  The modern idea — that there is a fixed age at which work ends, […]