Band 9: You should spend about 20 minutes on this task. The graph below shows the average retirement age of males and females in six countries in 2003. Summarise the information by selecting and reporting the main features, and make comparisons where relevant. Write at least 150 words.

The table compares the retirement ages in six countries for different sexes in 2003. Overall, the retirement age in the Asian group is higher than that of the other mainland group, with Korea having the highest retirement age for both genders, while France has the lowest. It is also notable that males tended to work longer than females in most of the countries.

In the Asian group, Korea leads the chart with retirement ages of 68 years and 4 months for males and 67 years and 2 months for females, which is slightly higher than Japan, where the retirement ages are 67 years and 4 months for males and 66 years and 9 months for females. In addition to these two countries in Asia, Italy also recorded a later retirement age, with both genders retiring at the same age as Japan.

In contrast, Australia and the United States have moderately lower retirement ages, approximately 2 to 3 years less than those in the Asian countries. Finally, the lowest retirement ages in this table are found in France, where males retire at 57 years and 4 months and females at 56 years and 9 months.