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Working fewer hours per week but for more years overall is a completely rational response to an irrational -- not to mention, unstable -- system.
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Very much agree with this.
Over the last decade I've prioritised pension contributions well beyond what a normal strategy in a stable system would, simply because I want to take advantage of incentives to the maximum extent I can before they are changed. That has left my financial resources a bit imbalanced in favour of pensions. I am now pretty much sorted for the post 55 stage of my life, and cannot justify significant further voluntary pension contributions.
By choosing to work fewer hours, doing about 75% full-time equivalent, I could increase my net take home pay (calculated on a per hour basis) by 5.6%. Although that isn't a huge difference, it is quite compelling nonetheless, given I need to work fewer days overall to reach my financial goal. It doesn't seem to make much sense to work more than optimal in order to reach a position of not working at all a little sooner. Currently a move to part-time work is planned for mid-2020, after the last of some favourable voluntary pension contribution arrangements become maxed out.
But even before actually reducing hours, I've already effectively started to partially retire by not pursing progression for the last decade. When I did the calculations, the net pay for a promotion would mean that rather than work another 13 years, I would only need to work 12 at a higher level. It just wasn't worth the extra effort, I'd far prefer an easy life for 13 years than a much more stressful one for 12 years, followed by a year off. Instead I took a job at the same pay with less responsibility (which I am still doing), enabling me to enjoy a much better lifestyle overall and do things like start my own business, etc, to take advantage of different ways of receiving income.
Between 10-15 years ago, I also used unpaid leave a couple of times to go traveling. By timing my departure and return carefully, I could avoid higher rate tax in the year I left and the year I returned, which was a nice bonus. This was a noticeable increase to my net earnings per month in the year I left and came back.
Personally I can't complain about all these strange incentives in the system to manipulate, I've done well out of them, but I very much doubt have much place in an efficient and fair system.