Saving for retirement is a priority for just 35% of workers around the world, finds a global survey by Nielsen.
On a regional basis, North America and Asia-Pacific respondents are the most actively engaged in saving for retirement (39% in each region). The number of respondents saving for retirement are below average in Latin America (32%), the Middle East/Africa (30%) and Europe (26%).
In Europe, 40% of respondents indicate they have no intentions to save for retirement at all, compared to the global average of 22% who don’t plan to save.
The difference in public and private retirement benefit programs gives context to retirement saving sentiment reported by consumers around the world, says Oliver Rust, senior vice-president of global financial services with Nielsen.
“When Americans retire, public-issued retirement benefits are typically much less than the amount they earned while they were employed; by comparison, Europeans rely on a greater share of their income,” he explains. “But that is changing in some European markets where mandatory employer pension plans are put in place in order to replace government plans in the longer term. Now more than ever, a greater reliance on private savings is needed to compensate.”
The survey also finds that 69% of participants believe they will achieve all their financial goals for the future, but of those, few trust their current planning will be enough, while most say they’ll need to closely monitor and adjust investments from time to time in order to best meet their financial expectations.
The other 31% of respondents have no confidence they will meet their financial goals with either current or modified asset allocations.
More than 30,000 people in 60 countries participated in the survey.