But before they get there, they will have to pay for their parents’ and grandparents’ state pension through their taxes.
Behind closed doors is a fierce debate over how to reform the system to ease the burden. This hinges on the age at which people receive state pension, and how much they should get.
“Either we have an increased bill for the taxpayer at a time when we’ve got the largest national debt in living memory, or people have to work for longer, if you don’t have enough income to cover your bills,” says Glancy.
According to the International Longevity Centre, the state pension age would need to rise from 66 today to 71 by 2050 to maintain the current ratio of workers per retiree. But this would be politically toxic and potentially unviable, if people are not healthy enough to work.
Former pensions minister Baroness Ros Altmann says the fix should not be raising the state pension age, but increasing the number of years a person must pay National Insurance before they qualify for the full payment. “That will mean more people will have a reason to keep working,” she says.
Currently, to get a full state pension, a person needs to have made 35 years of National Insurance payments. “The idea that 35 years is a full working life is totally out of date. If someone works for 50 years, they should get more state pension,” says Baroness Altmann.
The Government should also scrap a fleet of extra benefits for pensioners such as winter fuel payments and the Christmas bonus. Many are simply “political gimmicks” which cost the taxpayer far more than they are worth to pensioners, she adds.
There is also a question mark over the viability of the triple lock, which means state pension is raised each year by the largest of wage growth, inflation, or 2.5pc.
“We need to think about the triple lock and how sustainable it really is,” warns Phil Parkinson, head of investment and retirement at Mercer.
But any kind of reform is a political minefield. “There is a lot of fear of doing something that won’t be popular, a fear of being seen to do something against pensioners,” says Baroness Altmann.
It is policymakers’ aim to get private sector pensions to take on more of the burden, says she adds. “That’s part of the area where the outlook must improve to take more of the strain away, if you want to have an ageing population that isn’t in penury,” she warns.