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The Future of Retirement: What The World Wants

Introduction

This project has been undertaken by HSBC in collaboration with three leading organisations. The report is authored by the Oxford Institute of Ageing, part of Oxford University. The lead advisor was Age Wave, a consultancy headed by gerontologist Dr Ken Dychtwald, HSBC's Special Advisor on Global Ageing, and the global fieldwork was undertaken by Harris Interacive.

More than 21,000 adults have been interviewed in 20 countries and territories across five continents, which comprise 62% of the world's population. Following on from last year's report, which examined people's attitudes to ageing, retirement and later life, "The Future of Retirement: What the world wants" extends the survey to cover families, the workplace and the role of governments in meeting people's hopes and dreams.

A total of about 6,000 executives who are in charge of recruitment policy for private-sector employers have also been interviewed in the same 20 selected countries and territories. The aim in interviewing these employers was to understand their attitudes to ageing workforces and their practices relating to older workers.

The survey covers the "advanced economies" of Canada, France, Germany, Japan, Sweden, the UK and the USA - those that industralised early, have large service sectors, affluent populations and long established pensions infrastructure and legislation. The survey also covers the "transactional economies" of Brazil, China, Egypt, Hong Kong, Indonesia, India, Malaysia, Mexico, Poland, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Singapore and Turkey

Malaysia Report

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Quick Malaysia Facts

In Malaysia we talked to 1,000 individuals and 298 private sector employers, interviewing them by telephone. We have organised their response around five key questions:

1. What is retirement?
2. How will we pay for retirement?
3. When should we retire?
4. How do older workers compare with younger ones?
5. Do employers and employees think alike?

Key Findings

They also tend to be more likely than the Asian or global average to believe that they will rely on their children for care in retirement

Asked what might motivate them to work beyond the normal retirement age, many Malaysians speak of having something meaningful or valuable to do

When asked how they want to spend their time in retirement, very few Malaysians mention slowing down, and many talk of travelling

Malaysians are more likely than other Asians to associate retirement with positive feelings such as freedom and happiness, and less likely to associate it with negatives

Only in Malaysia, India and Russia are fewer than half the employers seeking to keep older workers with hard-to-replace skills

Asked why they don't do more to attract or retain older workers, Malaysian employers are much more likely than those elsewhere to say that older workers are not as capable or valuable

While Malaysian individuals are very likely to support government-enforced private savings, Malaysian employers are more inclined to support an increase in the retiremnt age

For the full global results, please click here