November 2012
Featured in this insight: Central government & non-department public bodies, Financial services, Local & regional government
Government survey finds majority of Britons confused about pensions: According to research by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), which surveyed 1,949 UK adults, the majority of Britons at 59% do not feel confident enough in their knowledge of pensions to begin saving for retirement.
The survey also revealed that 41% of respondents with a private pension haven’t a clue as to what their income will be once they reach retirement. This statistic rose to 79% of those who did not have a private pension, suggesting a serious savings knowledge gap among people in the UK.
Furthermore, 19% of the surveyants who have not yet begun saving for retirement claimed they were simply too young to be thinking that far ahead, while 39% of those aged between 18 and 24 admitted to actively avoiding thinking about retirement at all.
The study also revealed a gender gap – as many as 71% of the female respondents said they find the pension system overly complex, with a further 28% frankly saying they are scared to deal with pensions.
Nevertheless, pension auto-enrolment was recently launched by the Government to help tackle the problem of an ageing population who are not saving a nest egg for their Golden Years – official figures show that most employees (70%) will remain automatically enrolled in their company pension scheme.
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