April 2024

Singapore. Redefining Retirement: Why it’s Time To Broaden Our Understanding Of What It Means To Retire

When someone says the word ‘retiree’, the image that comes to mind is a person with greying hair, perhaps wrinkling skin, and is ready to spend the rest of their days lounging at the kopitiam in the middle of the day with a newspaper and a hot cup of kopi. One would reasonably expect such a person to be in their sixties, well past the definition of a young person. But in the past two weeks, not one but two young men, clearly...

US. As Gen Xers Inch Toward Retirement, They’re Considering Where to Live

When they were raising their four children, Billy and Erin Shipley had space for their family to grow: a two-story, five-bedroom house in Sugar Land, Texas, with a large yard and a pool. But as the children became adults and moved out, the second floor was deserted and maintaining the lawn and pool became a burden. Like many members of Generation X facing an empty nest, the Shipleys decided to look for a home better suited to their needs where...

China’s Young People Are Giving Up on Saving for Retirement

China wants young people to put money away for retirement. Tao Swift, an unemployed 30-year-old, is not interested in hearing it. “Retire with a pension?” he asked. “I don’t hold much hope that I can definitely get my hands on it.” Mr. Tao, who lives in the southern city of Chengdu, is not alone in thinking this way. On social media forums and among friends, young people are questioning whether to save for old age. Some are opting out, citing the...

53% of Americans surveyed feel they are behind on retirement planning and savings, CNBC poll finds

CNBC's International Your Money Financial Security Survey polled about 500 people each in nine countries. Of the 498 people surveyed in the U.S., more than half (53%) said they're behind schedule in retirement planning and savings. The poll was conducted by SurveyMonkey. "I think most Americans do struggle to save enough for retirement," said David Blanchett, a certified financial planner and head of retirement research for PGIM, a money manager. As part of its National Financial Literacy Month efforts, CNBC will...

March 2024

Little planning for looming retirement crisis, BlackRock chief warns

The chief executive of the world’s largest asset manager is warning of a future “retirement crisis”, as pension savings fail to keep up with life-extending medical breakthroughs. In his annual letter to investors, the BlackRock chief executive, Larry Fink, said that establishing “a secure, well-earned retirement” would be one of the greatest economic challenges to face the US in the mid-21st century. The boss of BlackRock, which manages about $10tn (£7.4tn) in assets, including retirement funds, praised medical advances, including obesity drugs such...

Australia. New Law Boosts Affordable, Accessible Financial Advice

Today, the Albanese Government has introduced the first tranche of legislation to deliver its comprehensive package of reforms to ensure Australians have access to quality and affordable financial advice. There are over five million Australians at or approaching retirement who need assistance to navigate the pension and superannuation systems. Unfortunately, the average cost of financial advice puts professional advice out of reach for many Australians. The Treasury Laws Amendment (Delivering Better Financial Outcomes and Other Measures) Bill 2024 implements reforms which...

The Riccati Tontine: How to Satisfy Regulators on Average

By Moshe A. Milevsky & T. S. Salisbury This paper presents a new type of modern accumulation-based tontine, called the Riccati tontine, named after two Italians: mathematician Jacobo Riccati (b. 1676, d. 1754) and financier Lorenzo di Tonti (b. 1602, d. 1684). The Riccati tontine is yet another way of pooling and sharing longevity risk, but is different from competing designs in two key ways. The first is that in the Riccati tontine, the representative investor is expected -- although...

Childhood Experience and Expected Sources of Income in Old Age

By Huabin Bian, Fei Jin, Qingfu Liu & Yiuman Tse This paper uses the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS) database to explore the impact of family relationships in childhood (CFR) and economic conditions in childhood (CEC) on awareness of income sources in old age (AOAIS). We find that people whose family relationships in childhood were harmonious have passive AOAIS, whereas those with favorable economic conditions in childhood demonstrate proactive AOAIS. CFR affects AOAIS through family values, while CEC influences...

Japan. World’s largest pension fund to resume foreign stock lending

Japan’s Government Pension Investment Fund (GPIF) has confirmed it will resume foreign stock lending after it first suspended the practice in December 2019. In the future, the fund intends to “promptly proceed” with specific practical measures such as the selection of foreign stock lending agents by asset management organisations. However, GPIF does not intend to carry out lending of domestic stocks. The fund will resume its activities in foreign stock lending (securities loan management) with a number of foreign stock lending initiatives. GPIF...

US. Around 20% of people have no retirement savings, survey finds

The AARP and the Ad Council launched a campaign called “This is Pretirement” to help encourage people to seriously think about their retirement plans. “The idea of creating a new campaign to give people small, actionable steps, to really get their retirement savings on track but remove that shame and fear, which is all over us when it really comes to retirement savings,” Mary Liz Burns with the AARP said. “You know, we did a financial trends survey, we’ve been doing it since the pandemic,”...