July 2023
21Jul

Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Retirement Outcomes: Impacts of Outreach

By Angelino Viceisza, Amaia Calhoun & Gabriella J.O. Lee We review select literature on racial and ethnic disparities in retirement outcomes in the United States and the impact of outreach on such outcomes. First, there are significant disparities in retirement outcomes, reflecting a long history of racism and structural barriers. Second, there is comparatively little work on the differential impact of retirement outreach across race and ethnicity. Future work should consider designing interventions that cater to the needs of specific...

July 21, 2023
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21Jul

Navigating pension options for gig economy workers

Industry experts unravel the common challenges and potential for gig workers in pension planning. The first question is, how much should you save? The gig economy has been growing steadily in the UK, bringing flexible work arrangements to millions of individuals. However, with this newfound flexibility comes the responsibility of planning for a secure financial future, including retirement. Workers in the gig economy often face unique challenges when it comes to pension planning. Unlike traditional employees, they typically lack access to...

July 21, 2023
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18Jul

Fidelity Investments forms retail annuities and pension risk transfer focused reinsurer

US investment giant Fidelity Investments has formed Soteria Reinsurance Ltd., a newly incorporated Class C insurer registered in Bermuda that will focus on the US retail fixed annuities and pension risk transfer space. On June 20th, 2023, Soteria Re, which is owned directly by Soteria Reinsurance Holdings, LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Fidelity Management & Research Company LLC, was registered with the Bermuda Monetary Authority as a Class C insurer. In a brochure dated March 28th, 2023, Fidelity explained that...

July 18, 2023
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05Jul

It’s time to address the UK’s disability pensions gap

Building a healthy retirement savings pot can be a challenge for anyone as they advance through their working lives. Yet, without question, it poses many additional, arduous challenges for those with disabilities. To put this into perspective, one fifth (22%) of UK adults are currently living with a disability. And people within that community have, on average, a pension wealth that is but a fraction (36%) of the typical UK pension pot. In practice, that means Britons with disabilities nearing retirement...

July 5, 2023
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June 2023
28Jun

China to explore housing pension system, improve residential quality: minister

China's housing minister has emphasized the need to improve the quality of housing and explore a housing pension system. Ni Hong, minister of Housing and Urban-Rural Development, called on the financial institutions to participate in urban construction and renovation, promoting the creation of livable, intelligent, and resilient cities, news outlet CHINAJSB.CN reported on Tuesday.   Ni made the remarks in a meeting with chairman of Bank of China on Monday to discuss a deepening of cooperation between the government and financial institutions,...

June 28, 2023
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16Jun

The Role of IRAs in US Households’ Saving for Retirement, 2022

By Sarah Holden & Daniel Schrass This paper presents survey results on the incidence of individual retirement account (IRA) ownership in the United States and the contribution, rollover, and withdrawal activity of IRA-owning households. IRAs play an important role in US households’ retirement saving: In mid-2022, more than four in 10 US households owned IRAs. Traditional IRAs were the most common type of IRA owned (31 percent of US households), followed by Roth IRAs and employer-sponsored IRAs. IRA-owning households often...

June 16, 2023
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13Jun

Confronting aging: How LGBTQ+ seniors can tackle their special caregiving challenges

Margaret Roesch, 67, and her wife, Pat McAulay, 68, wanted to have a supportive community around them as they grew older. So they helped to create a cohousing development for LGBTQ+ seniors and allies, making it easier to offer support to one another. “We said we don’t want to have to go back in the closet when we get older,” Roesch said from the front porch of her home in Durham, North Carolina. Opened in 2020, the Village Hearth is a...

June 13, 2023
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12Jun

South Africa: ‘Two-Pot’ Retirement System to Kick in On 1 March 2024 – Here’s How It Will Work

The draft legislation governing the first phase of the proposed two-pot system has been published and is open for comment. The long-awaited draft legislation with more details regarding the roll-out of the "two-pot" retirement system was published on Friday afternoon. The changes are being introduced in response to consumers' dire financial stress during the Covid pandemic, when many were unable to access their retirement savings despite having no other money to turn to. The implementation date remains 1 March 2024, and the...

June 12, 2023
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02Jun

Robust Retirement Tiers Can Help Keep Participants In-Plan

Workplace retirement plans may need to change their name—these days, more plan sponsors are looking for ways to serve their former employees even after they’ve quit working. Research released by Cerulli Associates last month showed that more than half of plan sponsors (54%) would prefer to keep their retired participants’ assets in their plan, rather than seeing them rolled into an individual retirement account or other plan. That’s more than double the 26% who said the same in 2019. But plan...

June 2, 2023
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May 2023
17May

UK. Improving financial security in retirement

How much to put aside for retirement is one of those issues that many working age people do not like to think about very much. With the last seven years dominated by Brexit, dealing with a pandemic and recovery from it, supporting households and businesses with energy bills and the cost of living crisis, it is also fair to say retirement saving has not been front and centre in the mind of policymakers either. While there was a lot of policy...

May 17, 2023
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