KPMG’s latest report, ‘Me, my life, my wallet’ research indicates that more and more people are postponing their retirement plans due to longer life expectancy and the need work for a longer period of time.

‘Me, my life, my wallet’, a new study by the international tax, audit and consultancy company KPMG, noted striking results about the perspective of today’s consumers regarding retirement. Conducted with 25 thousand consumers living in the UK, USA, United Arab Emirates, France, Brazil, Canada, and China; the survey indicates that ‘unretirement’ is the new form of retirement for today’s environment where the population is getting older and average life expectancy continues to increase.

Approximately 27 percent of the survey participants showed a highly worried attitude when asked about their pension. The survey proved that this attitude changed only slightly in different groups of income. 25 percent of the Generation X, who are 10 to 20 years away from retirement state that they have not started to save for their retirement yet; while only 30 percent of them believe that they will be financially safe enough to retire in the coming years.

According to the survey, there are 6 main reasons withholding consumers from retiring:

• Insufficient savings to fund them during retirement
• Postponed plans for the future
• The fear of running out of money
• The challenge of paying off their debts
• Extension of financial support between generations
• Need to earn more during the phase following their working life

Perception of retirement is changing 

Emrah Akın, KPMG Turkey Retail and Consumer Products Leader, stated that those reasons, combined with a longer life expectancy and the need for/wish to work for longer years, introduced ‘unretirement’ as a new phase of life. Underlining that working for long years should not be definitively regarded as a bad thing, Emrah Akın added: “Some people may prefer to remain within the workforce for long years just because they want to. They are also worried that retirement equals to boredom. On the other hand, some may prefer to have an entertaining job rather than having to work during retirement.”

‘Unretirement’ is regarded as a ‘fulfillment’ concept that complements the need to fill time (give me something extra to fill my time) or budget (give me some extra income to help me live the way I want to live). On the other hand, others regard this as directly a thing to do in order to survive rather than a fulfillment activity. In many cases, consumers postpone or even cancel their retirement plans to be able to afford their rents, pay-off their mortgages, or simply, to keep their fridges full. 

The research reveals that a major part of the Baby Boomers has the potential to deny the retirement approaches of the ‘Silent-Generation’ including social communities in sunny places where retirees play games with other retirees and a relaxed way of living. In addition to being more active and multi-dimensional, this generation is known to stay away from the experience of what retirees do or should do.

Companies should be prepared

The conclusion of the research states that companies should change their perspective of the 5 following elements so that they can be prepared to face the ‘uncertain’ future to be created by consumers who are postponing their retirements:

• Integrity of customers’ budgets
• Mutual relation between today’s consumption and future planning
• How consumption models change during those life phases and what are the new unmet customer needs
• Dependency between generations and how the financial status of one group impacts another
• A chance to take active role in helping customers make better plans