The International Schools Review Forum

I have two years teaching in Germany. I'm wondering for a pension which country it best to go to at this point: return to Germany or one of the Scandinavian countries. And aside from Germany how do the Scandinavian countries including Iceland stack up against each other in terms of pension? Cheers. :)

Out of curiosity do any of these places offer a pension of more than a few hundred USD for a foreign teacher who arrives in their 50s and works for ~15 years?

If not, what is the allure? I could see it for a teacher who already has their financial ducks in a row and wanted to retire in relative style in western Europe. Otherwise, you could be retiring near or below the poverty line in a foreign country whose rules for pensions and healthcare slowly tighten as the demographic bomb continues to tick in these places.

I'm curious because I see these pension posts from time to time and was wondering how viable they are compared to self-financing your retirement through savings. For example, I have a modest social security pension in the US but I'll need a lot more than that to have anything near a comfortable retirement. So, being in my mid-forties I'm heading to China to build up some retirement savings. Thoughts?

If you work for 15 -25 years, expect a pension of about 500-1000 a month. If you have paid off mortgage by that time and have income from investments worth, say half a million, Europe may not be bad place.

SE Asia and China might offer greater monetary savings, but the flip side is private healthcare in retirement years could get darn expensive and you could exhaust your cash pile pretty soon on some major ailment.

My plan is to get the best state pension I can at a late age but retire someplace inexpensive, probably in Asia. The problem is that some European countries require you to live in that country 6 months a year to receive their pension.

I concur with @fine dude. Youre looking at about €1000/mth but more significant especially in older years is the medical/health care benefits which in Asia could easily eat through self funded retirement and saving very quickly if your outside of somewhere like SG or JP.

Psyguy,

I thought we lost you.

Welcome back

Interesting. I have a follow-up question then. If it's more about public healthcare than the pension, what does it take to have access in most western European countries? Is it like Medicare where you need a certain amount of time in system as a taxpayer or is it residency-based?

@Psychometrika

As soon as you start paying the taxes and medical contributions you get to use the health and medical services. When you retire depending on the country you either continue paying the medical contributions (which can be very, very small) or you continue to get access to the medical/health care system without cost.

Does an EU resident have access to state medical care in any EU country? Example, if I'm a Norwegian citizen or resident retired with a state pension but living in Asia, if I require a medical procedure do I have access to state health care in Portugal, Czech Republic, etc? And if I chose to have a medical procedure in an EU country where the procedure was more expensive than having it done in Norway would I have to cover the difference in expense?

Norway is not in the EU.

@TeacherGal

Norway is not part of the EU but it is part of the EEA, which in this case is sufficient. The program that would cover you is whats called a European Health Insurance Card (EHIC). Providing your resident country will provide you one based on whatever requirements they have, it allows you to seek and obtain urgent (such as seeing a health care provider for sudden illness) and emergency (youre in an auto accident and require emergency care at hospital) during short term visits. Youre treatment would be provided to you at whatever cost it would be available to a local covered by the regional/national health care scheme. Short term is typically considered an average of three months, but can be longer (such as in the case of students, etc.) It is not intended for the treatment and care of conditions that can be delayed until your return to your resident country, not can you substitute one countries health care program with one obtained in another country long term.

Not likely, youd have to pay whatever taxes in the host country your getting the EHIC from, and EHICs have to be renewed and youd likely run into problems with residence if you were constantly relying on an outside medical/health care system while living in an Asian country.

You cant really "choose" a procedure, either the medical treatment and care is urgent or emergency, its not intended and cant be used for elective or selective healthcare.