Opinion
Last year I wrote a column taking a long hard look at a pattern I kept seeing in the superannuation industry: report after report measuring how anxious Australians feel about retirement, with very little action to show for it.
PR dressed up as progress, I called it, and my readers agreed loudly. We don’t need more reports, we need more action to help members navigate their retirement.
Retirement age and the concept of retirement in Australia are changing dramatically. Dominic Lorrimer So when Colonial First State’s annual Rethinking Retirement report landed on my desk this week, I’ll admit I picked it up with a slightly raised eyebrow. But then I read it properly. And then I read it again. Because CFS has actually done a lot of work on its retirement and advice propositions this year, not just commissioned another survey.
And there was a finding buried in that report truly worth sharing and talking about today. It could be the most important thing I’ve read about retirement all year.
It concerns the amount of worry people are expending on retirement, possibly unnecessarily, and how such worry has surprisingly little to do with the money they have as they approach retirement but more to do with how proactive they are in understanding their real position.
According to the CFS report, almost half of all Australians (49 per cent) don’t feel prepared for retirement. Among that group, more than half (56 per cent) are actively worried about it.
We don’t need an actual problem to feel real anxiety. We just need an unanswered question.
However, among Australians who do feel prepared, such worry falls to just 15 per cent. Same economy, same cost of living, same grocery bills
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