June 2026
26Jun

Avoiding the ‘pink pound’ blind spot

By Scottish Widows  While Pride celebrations carried on around the UK, the reality is that ‘pink finances’ remain in dire straits. It was a common trope not that long ago that this cohort of society was more likely to be more affluent than average. But the reality is very different. In fact, the challenges facing LGBTQ+ people are vast, and this group is much more likely to have a range of different vulnerabilities. To ensure that they continue to deliver the...

June 26, 2026
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18Jun

Vanguard’s alarming state of retirement in 2026: The average American has $167,970 in their account—or they have $44,115

For 25 years, Vanguard has been keeping score on the great American retirement experiment. Every year, it publishes the most comprehensive snapshot in the industry of how workers save, how much they accumulate, and whether any of it will be enough. The 2026 edition is out. Spoiler: It depends on which number you’re looking at. The number Vanguard leads with is $167,970—the average 401(k) balance across nearly 5 million accounts the firm administered at year-end 2025. That’s a record high, up 13% from...

June 18, 2026
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18Jun

South Korea. Pension Savings Balances Near 200 Trillion Won

Last year, driven by a bullish stock market, pension savings balances neared 200 trillion Korean won, with annual returns exceeding 10%. Notably, annual returns for pension savings funds and exchange-traded funds (ETFs) approached 30%. Pension savings are voluntary products individuals join in addition to the National Pension and retirement pensions. On the 18th, the Financial Services Commission and the Financial Supervisory Service announced in the "2025 South Korean Pension Savings Investment White Paper" that last year’s accumulated pension savings balance...

June 18, 2026
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18Jun

Nigeria. Over 92% of personal pension savings accounts remain unfunded

Amidst efforts by the National Pension Commission, PenCom, to include informal sector workers in the pension scheme, the Personal Pension Plan, PPP, which caters to the informal sector, has remained stagnant. While the PPP has 215,412 registered Retirement Savings Accounts, RSAs, only 17,320 of these RSAs, which represents 8.0 per cent, have received contributions. The remaining 198,092 RSAs, which represent 92.0 per cent, are dormant. PenCom, in its fourth quarter 2025 report stated that registrations are not savings and registration without funding...

June 18, 2026
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17Jun

US. Retirement savings set record high — but so do hardship withdrawals: Vanguard

There's some good news and some not-so-good news on the retirement front from Vanguard. Americans set aside a record amount of money in their 401(k) accounts last year, according to Vanguard's "How America Saves 2026" report. But while savings rates are up, so are the number of Americans tapping their 401(k) for emergencies. Vanguard said 6% of participants made a hardship withdrawal in 2025, the largest share ever and up from 5% in 2024. "Pressures such as inflation and rising interest rates contribute...

June 17, 2026
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12Jun

How does private pension saving change for workers moving from employee jobs into self-employment?

By Jonathan Cribb & Laurence O'Brien Self-employed workers make up a significant part of the UK workforce, with over one-in-eight workers in self-employment. However, there are long-standing concerns about low levels of pension saving among this group: only 20% of working-age self-employed workers were saving in a private pension in 2022–23, compared with around 80% of employees (Department for Work and Pensions, 2025a). The trends in pension participation differ markedly between the two groups. In the late 1990s, almost 50%...

June 12, 2026
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12Jun

The financial well-being of retired professional athletes: debunking the myth about financial irresponsibility

By Grant Laschowski & Norm O'Reilly This research aims to investigate the financial well-being (FWB) of retired male athletes in major professional North American team sports. Framed around Kempson’s (2017) FWB Model, the aim of this research is (1) to identify the key drivers that influence how retired athletes feel about their current financial situations and (2) to assess these findings in the context of how external constituents view the FWB of these athletes. The research addressed two questions: What...

June 12, 2026
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12Jun

LGBTQ+ Labor Market Outcomes

By Travis Campbell & Yana Van Der Meulen Rodgers The emerging field of LGBTQ+ economics has convincingly demonstrated that LGBTQ+ individuals face distinct labor market disparities. This chapter provides an overview of their unfavorable labor market outcomes and then focuses on several specific issues for transgender workers. Previous studies show that gender-affirming care can improve mental health, whereas conversion therapy, which denies an individual's gender identity, damages mental health. An unexplored question is whether these mental health effects extend to...

June 12, 2026
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12Jun

UK. Pension saving plummets when employees move into self-employment

Currently, only around one-in-five self-employed workers save into a private pension, compared with around four-in-five employees. There is widespread agreement that there is an urgent need for policies addressing low pension participation among the self-employed, as recently highlighted by the Second Pensions Commission. A key potential moment for such policies is the point when employees move into self-employment. Currently, even among employees consistently saving in a pension, more than three-quarters stop saving in a pension once they start being self-employed. This...

June 12, 2026
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10Jun

US. How Saving More and Starting Early Can Significantly Improve Retirement Happiness

Many retirees regret not saving enough or starting sooner, since both can shape their financial security and happiness later. Even small amounts saved early can grow significantly over time, thanks to the power of compounding interest. With longer lifespans and fewer pensions, saving more now can give you more room to enjoy retirement—not just cover the basics.Retirement has changed due to longer life spans, shrinking pensions, and rising health care costs. What was once a quiet chapter in...

June 10, 2026
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