The Future of Retirement 2006 – What the world wants

• What is retirement?
• When should we retire?
• How to pay for retirement?
• Korean Key Findings

The Future of Retirement: What the world wants released in year 2006, has been undertaken by HSBC in collaboration with three leading organizations. The report is authored by the Oxford Institute of Ageing, part of Oxford University. The lead advisor was Age Wave, a consultancy headed by gerontologist Dr. Ken Dychtwald, HSBC’s Special Advisor on Global Ageing, and the global fieldwork was undertaken by Harris Interactive.
More than 22,000 adults have been interviewed in 21 countries and territories across five continents. An additional survey for Korea has been included to improve the understanding and relevance for Koreans.
Following on from last year’s report, which examined people’s attitude to ageing, retirement and later life, the Future of Retirement: What the world wants extends the investigation to cover families, the work place and the role of governments in meeting people’s hopes and dreams.

"I want to do something new when I’m older."
So long as they are healthy and able, people increasingly want to do something active in their retirement rather just resting. This is also true of many trendsetters in transitional economies, who appear to be looking forward to an active old age. These individuals may be “leapfrogging” the idea of retirement as a period of rest and relaxing, going straight for the new model of active retirement.

"I don’t believe anyone should lose their job because they are too old."
Across the globe, irrespective of respondents’ age, the majority of people reject enforced withdrawal from the workplace at a fixed age. A large proportion of employees and employers feel that people should be able to carry on working to any age so long as they are still capable of doing their job well.

"I don’t believe my government will bear most of the financial cost of supporting me in retirement."
People are increasingly recognizing that governments will not be their sole source of support in old age. In almost every country and territory the majority of people reject the traditional policies for funding retirement-raising taxes, lowering pensions or lengthening working life. Given the choice, the favored option in all countries and territories across all age ranges is enforced additional private savings.

Koreans’ Retirement Planning

The HSBC Future of Retirement survey contains local findings for Korea that will reveal Korea's collective feelings on ageing issues and retirement.
A total of 500 adult Koreans aged from 35 to 55 - a representative sample – were interviewed for this additional survey and these key insights were drawn from Koreans‘ responses.
According to the survey, about 90% of the respondents fully acknowledge the needs of retirement planning.



However only 2% of respondents completed the preparation and 69% of those are currently in preparation.



For those who completed the retirement planning, the additional question of how much asset is needed after retirement has been asked : in average the amount of 578 million KRW is needed and 37% of this amount has been prepared.
The rest will be raised by other sources of real estate, asset management, retirement grants, stock, etc.

People all over the world are realizing the practical limitations on what their government can do to support them in later life, and the greatest proportion of people believe that the solution is for individuals to take responsibility for their own futures.

Future of Retirement 2006, What the World wants