How long will you have to wait for your other half to retire?

Fewer than one in ten couples retires at the same time as one another. A new study has revealed that almost a third of people have to wait between three and five years for their other half to retire, while another third have to wait over five years. So what should you do in the interim?

The study, from Saga Investment Services, found that the reasons for the gap varied. Almost a third were vexed by the fact they are different ages and have different retirement ages - so they are waiting for the younger member of the couple (or the woman) to reach their state pension age.

If you're in this position, spare a thought for the likes of Donald and Melania Trump (who have a 24 year age gap) or Jason Statham and Rosie Huntington-Whitely (20 years) - which could see one of the couple retire decades ahead of the other.

Even where couples reach retirement age together, they don't necessarily both retire. In the study, a third of couples had reached retirement age, but discovered that at least one member of the couple didn't have enough cash to live on, so were forced to stay in work

The other major reason for one half of the couple retiring first was that their other half just wasn't ready to hang up their hat and spend the rest of their lives hanging out with their spouse.

In a tenth of couples, this is not a happy arrangement, and the retired member of the couple finds themselves a bit lonely and bored. However, the majority (57%) liked the idea of having time to spend exactly as they wanted.

What do we do?

When asked what they ended up doing with this spare time, the most popular answer wasn't desperately inspiring - 37% of people did DIY and housework. On a slightly more positive side, 25% of people said they now had time for the garden, 13% took up exercise, and 5% spent a bit of time surfing the internet.

A huge number of people also took on caring responsibilities. Some 17% looked after grandchildren, 7% got a puppy, and 6% looked after elderly relatives. Meanwhile, 12% of people took up volunteering - so continued to work but did so for a cause they really believed in.

What should we do?

There's a strong argument that these older volunteers and carers are the unsung heroes of their generation, often providing the support to their children and grandchildren that makes all the difference to their household finances. Many hundreds of thousands of people could simply not afford to work if their parents didn't offer to provide childcare for free.

Likewise, the backbone of many charitable organisations are the volunteers who hold entire communities together, raise millions of pounds, and provide help and support to those who need it most. As one AOL reader recently wrote to us: "We contribute by donating our time and talents in a huge variety of voluntary work, which saves the Government money. I do two shifts a week at our local hospice and the nearly 800 volunteers who work there and in our hospice shops save our local hospice (and thus the NHS) one and half million pounds a year."

Of course, on a purely financial basis, there's any number of things they could be doing instead. With so many recent retirees in good health, they could conceivably stay on at work, find paid work elsewhere, or turn some of their DIY, housework and gardening hobbies into money-making enterprises. This could make an enormous difference to their financial position both now and later in retirement - and could make all the difference if they end up having to pay for care later in life.

But does that mean they should drop their vital voluntary work? Could the country even cope without it? Let us know in the comments.