October 2023

Understanding Financial Vulnerability Among Asians, Blacks, and Hispanics in the United States

By Andrea Hasler, Annamaria Lusardi, Olivia S. Mitchell & Alessia Sconti The COVID-19 crisis has brought to light the deeply rooted financial struggles that many people face in America, and it also exacerbated racial inequality. In particular, minority communities have been disproportionately impacted by the pandemic in many ways, making them ideal targets for efforts to promote financial well-being. This paper examines the financial vulnerability of Asians, Blacks, and Hispanics in the United States, along with potential drivers, using data...

August 2023

Helping people overcome their lack of ‘longevity literacy’

Longevity risk continues to be a hot topic for advisors, especially as their clients continue to suffer from a lack of “longevity literacy.“ The TIAA Institute and the Global Financial Literacy Excellence Center at the George Washington University School of Business released data last week showing that American adults are overwhelming unaware of both their potential lifespans and the amount of money needed to cover them. Respondents were asked to identify the likelihood among 65-year-olds of living to 90 and the likelihood of...

Aging Is Trending On TikTok – Lean In To Inspire Gen Z’s Retirement Goals

Coastal grandmother and grandmillennial may be popular design trends on TikTok but getting younger generations to financially plan for those years is more of a challenge. Nearly a third of Gen Z workers are not are not saving for retirement, according to a recent Bankrate survey, and roughly the same amount report feeling behind on their planning. While the Gen Z cohort, which includes workers between the ages of 18-25, has the benefit of time to build the foundations of...

US. ‘Staggering’ Number of Adults Don’t Know How Long Retirements Last

They found that less than 40% of adults correctly identified the average lifespan at retirement age. “Longevity literacy is particularly important since retirement income security inherently involves planning, saving, and preparing for a period that is uncertain in length,” Surya Kolluri, head of the TIAA Institute, said in a statement. “Our research clearly demonstrates a lack of longevity literacy among the vast majority of U.S. adults. Improving this can promote better retirement security and mitigate longevity risk.” The researchers said there...

July 2023

The Silver Wave: China’s Rapidly Aging Population and the Rise of Elderly Education

By 2030, 1 in 6 people in the world will be aged 60 years or over. By 2050, the world’s population of people aged 60 years and older will double (2.1 billion). The number of persons aged 80 years or older is expected to triple between 2022 and 2050 to reach 600 million. China has one of the fastest-growing aging populations in the world. There were 280 million people aged 60 and above in China at the end of 2022,...

June 2023

UK. Half of DC pension savers don’t know how to access retirement pot

Almost half of defined contribution (DC) pension savers in their 50s and 60s have not considered how they will access their retirement pot, a study finds. The Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) research published today (30 June) finds that close to half of working-age people have at least a small amount of wealth held in DC pensions. Wealthier people are more likely to have DC pension wealth — 60% of individuals in the top tenth of the (non-pension) wealth distribution have...

May 2023

Ghana. Govt urged to establish Financial Literacy Education Secretariat

The government has been urged to establish a Financial Literacy Education Secretariat to continuously educate the public on financial literacy issues. This proposal is contained in Ghana Financial Literacy Strategy (2021-2025), which was prepared by Asamoah and Williams Consulting and Trans-media Network as part of the Financial Literacy Education Project (FLEP) under the Ghana Financial Sector Development Project (GFSDP), funded by the World Bank. The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Asamoah and Williams Consulting, Mr Mawuko Williams, who made the call...

March 2023

Retirement preparedness during uncertain times

By Fidelity 2023 RSA Executive Summary Fidelity’s Retirement Savings Assessment is built upon comprehensive data from more than 3,500 survey responses that are run through the extensive retirement planning platform Fidelity uses every day with customers. The result: a numerical indicator showing whether savers are on track to meet estimated retirement income needs. The score places households into four categories on the preparedness spectrum, based on a household’s ability to cover estimated retirement expenses in a down market. Read book here

The Influence of Financial Literacy on Retirement Planning in South Africa

By Nyasha Tapiwa Dhlembeu, Mamekwa Katlego Kekana & Mpinda Freddy Mvita Background: A shift in the retirement planning and pensions landscape has created an enormous responsibility for individuals to plan for their retirement provision actively. Very few South Africans reach the average retirement age of 65 years with sufficient funds to sustain themselves during their retirement. Purpose/objective: Using secondary data from the 2011 South African Social Attitudes Survey (SASAS), this study aims to examine the influence financial literacy has on the...

A Leveraged Gender Gap: The Combined Effect of Longevity Risk (Mis)-Perception and Financial Risk-Taking

By Giovanna Apicella & Enrico G. De Giorgi Financial risk and longevity risk are the main risks affecting pension income. This paper analyses gender differences related to how financial risk taking and survival expectations are correlated. We analyse data from the “Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe” (SHARE) database and find a significant gender gap in self-assessed risk tolerance, consistently with previous literature. Moreover, we show that individuals with realistic survival expectations (i.e., survival expectations that are close...