Retirement has two faces: positive aspirations for life after work and concerns about adequate savings. The Changing Face of Retirement: The Aegon Retirement Readiness Survey 2014 examines people’s ambitions and fears about retirement in the aftermath of the global financial crisis.

The objective of this survey is to better understand what comes to people’s minds when they think about their retirement. For years, there has been a chorus of societal messages about the need to make greater personal provision for retirement and for individuals to take more personal responsibility for their own retirement planning. Yet, the rate of progress and reform often seems painfully slow. The impact of the financial crisis added further pressures on the ability of individuals and families to fund retirement.

As people come to accept greater responsibility for funding their retirement, it is increasingly important that retirement systems be easy to navigate and understand. The survey findings show that employers can play a major role here by helping to share the responsibility of saving for retirement, but also by helping employees make the right decisions at the right stages in their lives. Employers can help people begin to save earlier, encourage them to save more regularly, and support them in their transition into retirement.  

As nations around the world look to create a new affordable and sustainable blueprint for retirement, this report’s findings aim to help governments, employers and employees work better together to make retirement planning a reality for all.

The global retirement survey of 16,000 respondents across 15 countries spanning the Americas, Europe, Asia, and Australia was conducted in 2014. It is a collaboration between Transamerica Center for Retirement Studies and Aegon.