SS&C Blog

BLOGS. April 22, 2022

Generational Considerations for Retirement Planning

In our "Retirement Planning: Same Challenges, Different Solutions" post, we discussed how pension funds in the UK and superannuation funds in Australia face many of the same challenges. One particular challenge lies in the generational considerations of the demographics participating in these funds. For example, as people live longer, they may find their accumulations at retirement are insufficient to reach the duration of their lives. Premature depletion, or accessing retirement funds earlier than expected, only exacerbates this problem. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Australia chose to allow participants to access superannuation funds to help ease personal financial burdens, completely emptying their funds in some cases. The UK did not allow similar access. Along similar lines, many retirees in the UK and Australia receive their pensions as a lump sum, but longevity-focused products like annuities (already common in the US) are gaining more popularity.