Total assets in the 22 largest major retirement markets reached a record 80% of GDP in 2020, up 11.2 percentage points for the year.

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The Thinking Ahead Institute’s latest Global Pension Assets Study, for the year ended Dec. 31, said the rise in the ratio of retirement assets to average GDP was the largest year-on-year rise since the study began in 1998.

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While this increase would usually indicate the strength of the retirement market, the sharp rise also highlights the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on many countries’ GDP, the study said.

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The increase was even bigger for the seven largest retirement markets — Australia, Canada, Japan, the Netherlands, Switzerland, the U.K. and the U.S. — with assets accounting for 147% of GDP, up from 127% in 2019.

Total assets across the 22 markets grew $52.52 trillion, up just over 11% for the year and up 81.9% vs. figures as of end-2010. Assets of the seven largest markets represented 92% of the total, at $48.22 trillion and up 12.7% over the year.

The U.S. remained the largest retirement market, representing 62% of worldwide assets at $32.57 trillion. Japan surpassed the U.K. into second place, with 6.9% of total assets at $3.61 trillion, while the U.K. had $3.56 trillion and accounted for 6.8% of the total.

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