Hopeton Morrison, Business Columnist

Financial advisers often direct investors to concentrate on their own retirement as priority number one.

But, increasingly, the extended family structure of the east is overtaking the western nuclear family model in some of the more developed countries where older parents were left on their own to reside in some retirement or nursing home.

Today, as the Baby Boomer generation ages, the culture is changing and more families are either moving into the homes of their aging parents or bringing their aging parents into their homes.

It is more difficult, however, to finance children, especially their education.

Jamaican parents tend to spend an awful lot of money on their children's education.

Much to learn

There is much to learn from the way in which the average North American parent - including many Jamaicans who have migrated and now live there - treat their children's education.

Children are given maximum encouragement and support to get to college. But parents often draw the line and establish a prudent and fair balance between their own financial support, financial aid from the school or some other source, and student loans which the children are obligated to repay on graduation.

The counter-argument here in Jamaica is that this type of model is impractical as hundreds of young people graduate each year with no prospect of work and so can hardly service a student loan.

That does not negate a child's responsibility to repay his student loan when he eventually finds gainful employment as he/she usually does in or out of Jamaica.

Establishing that balance between financing your aging parents, your children and your retirement is one that cannot be made on sentiment alone.

Some of us are only too aware of parents who have retired and are abandoned by their now very successful grown children.

It seems particularly acute for those with children who migrated to North America and Europe.

For some of those parents it is a tale of abandonment, need and woe. Sometimes it is not even the fact that a child is unwilling to support her parents, but some of these grown children's partners are patently against diverting money away from the 'family' budget towards aging parents.

So the first and most important person in that mix of retirement, aging parents and children is you. It might sound selfish and a bit harsh but the evidence in personal finance emphatically supports this approach.

Which brings us to the next question of when you should retire. Bear in mind that retirement is a relatively new concept born in America during the Great Depression of the 1930s.

Social security

In fact, retirement was premised on the creation of social security there in 1935.

Social security provided an opportunity for older persons to leave their jobs and retire so that younger persons could find work.

But some contemporary thinkers in the field of personal finance now argue that retirement has outlived its usefulness and should itself be retired.

In fact many persons are doing just that.

Today, several millions of persons worldwide are still at work well into their late 60s and 70s. It is called 'downshifting' to a more relaxed schedule, such as part-time or a balanced work/leisure schedule.

And unlike what pertained in the past financial planners are armed with information on retirement not just for those close to retirement, but for those who are just starting out on their first job.

Today's first time employee is now being encouraged to put away 10-15 per cent of his earnings from the first day of employment to finance his retirement.

Hopeton Morrison is general manager of St. Thomas Cooperative Credit Union Limited and lecturer at the School of Business Administration, University of Technology. Email: hmorrison@stccu.com .

High school and college education for children is a big cost that requires planning, and takes precedence for many over retirement savings.