[Culturechat] Retirement schemes in CH

[Vance Roy]

How do the Swiss plan for retirement? Swiss women can retire at age 62,
while men are eligible at 65.

The planning for this event is based upon the "Three Support Columns
Principle". There are some remarkable similarities to the USA.

The first pillar is AHV (Social Security). Everyone who works, even
foreigners, contributes to this along with each employer. Even a foreign
"guest worker" who returns to his home country, has an AHV account
maintained until he is eligible to retire. Some countries have treaties
with CH (I think that the USA is one), which allow one to contribute to
his own country's social plan.

The second pillar is called Pensionskasse and corresponds to a USA
company pension plan.

The third pillar is an individual account which sounds a lot like a USA IRA.

The second and third pillars are not compulsory, but one would be a fool
to depend on social security alone.

The Swiss, unlike some of the Scandinavian countries do live in a cradle
to grave social state Their social security is a lot like ours. In fact,
they say, "Social security pays too much to die on and too little to
live on." Sound familiar, doesn't it?
-- 
Vance Roy
gigli.saw@dplanet.ch.