October 2025

Ghana. Gov’t urged to raise salaries and extend retirement age to 65

“Someone is receiving as high as GH₵140,000 monthly pension, while others get as little as GH₵400. For such people, nothing will change even in 200 years if they were to live that long, because their salaries were too low and they didn’t adequately plan for retirement,” he lamented. He explained that improving public sector salaries would not only ensure a decent standard of living for workers but also guarantee better pension benefits after retirement. Dr. Sefa Twum also proposed that Ghana’s...

US. Are Workers Warming Up to In-Plan Annuities?

“Today, 40 percent of retirees have access to a pension plan. The numbers go down substantially each generation,” Hodgens says. “Just 24 percent of Gen X workers have access to a pension, and only 16 percent of millennials will have a pension.” He and other financial professionals say recent federal legislation focused on retirement security could help fill the pension gap. The Setting Every Community Up for Retirement Enhancement (SECURE) Act, passed in 2019, and SECURE 2.0, which followed three...

How China’s aging boom is turned into an investment story

With 300 million seniors and a shrinking workforce, China's 'silver economy' is emerging as one of its most durable new growth engines Residents of a community for senior citizens on the outskirts of Beijing. Retired factory supervisor Zhang Meihua starts every morning with a brisk walk around a new riverside park in Chengdu, tracking her steps on a smartwatch made by Huawei. "I never cared about gadgets before," she said. "But my children worry if I don't share my health data....

Rising birth rates no longer tied to economic prosperity

Fertility rates began falling in most of the world starting in the last century. By the 1970s, the U.S. had dipped under the replacement rate of 2.1 children per woman, a trend that has continued on a declining slope. In her new working paper, “The Downside of Fertility,” Claudia Goldin, the Henry Lee Professor of Economics, takes a deeper dive into the cultural changes around gender that are driving down fertility rates. The economic historian and 2023 Nobel laureate introduced a model in a previous...

DC Plan Sponsors Target Wellness, Compliance and Lower Costs

When defined contribution plan sponsors were asked to name the top three priorities over the next 12 months, expanding financial wellness, ensuring regulatory compliance, and reducing plan costs were among the top responses. In fact, 4 in 10 (39%) respondents cited expanding their financial wellness programs as their No. 1 focus, underscoring the importance of ensuring good participant outcomes to plan sponsors. And while financial wellness was the most popular top priority overall, nearly as many respondents are focused on...

More than a third of UK workers face retirement poverty amid weak engagement

More than a third of UK workers - equivalent to around 11.6 million people - are on course to fall short of covering their basic needs in retirement, research from Scottish Widows has revealed. The insurer’s latest report, Retirement Realities: Unlocking the Workplace Benefits, found that while auto-enrolment has brought millions into pension saving, contribution levels and engagement remained far too low to deliver adequate outcomes for most workers. Drawing on surveys of 1,000 senior decision-makers responsible for workplace pensions and 2,000...

Canada’s largest pension investment manager sued over alleged climate risk mismanagement

Toronto, Ont./ Traditional territories of several First Nations including the Williams Treaties First Nations, Huron-Wendat, the Anishnaabeg, Haudenosaunee, Chippewas, and the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation — Four young people in Canada are taking the sixth largest pension fund manager in the world to court, claiming it is breaching its duty to invest in their best interests by failing to protect their pensions from climate risk. Represented by lawyers from Ecojustice and Goldblatt Partners LLP, Aliya Hirji, Travis Olson,...

Life expectancy must not be only factor to determine state pension age

Life expectancy should not be the only factor when setting the state pension age, experts have warned. Providers shared their concerns as part of the call for evidence for the Third State Pension Age Review, warning any age changes should not deepen inequalities. The review into the state pension age is exploring how changes in life expectancy, along with other factors should be reflected in future changes to the state pension age. The state pension age is increasing to 67 by 2028, with...

Aussie pension funds chasing greater investments in Europe, richer returns in US market

Australian pension funds are growing so much they are now investing in the US, UK and Europe energy, transport and infrastructure projects. Pension funds are keen to double their investment in Europe (with the UK) in 10 years as the US remains the most lucrative market, the Super Members Council (SMC) says. A new SMC report on Australian investment in Europe predicts that more than $660 billion will be invested there by 2025 while it is likely to hit the $1.5 trillion mark...

What’s making pension funds bet big on bitcoin?

Digital assets are no longer just a playground for early adopters — big institutions are now stepping in. From pension funds to multi-strategy hedge funds, investors are increasingly looking for crypto exposure. Yahoo Finance Future Focus caught up with Anatoly Crachilov, CEO of Nickel Digital, to find out which institutions are leading the charge and what’s driving their interest. Crachilov traced the evolution of crypto investors over Nickel Digital’s six-and-a-half-year history. Initially, demand came from family offices, but today, larger...