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Many Swiss believe quality of life will suffer on retirement

Pension: many Swiss won't make it to maintain living tenor
Pension: many Swiss won't make it to maintain living tenor Keystone-SDA

More than a quarter (27%) of Swiss believe they will not be able to maintain their standard of living after retirement.

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The share rises to 46% in French-speaking Switzerland, while dropping to 21% in German-speaking Switzerland, according to a survey commissioned by insurer Axa, which did not take into account Ticino.

The demographic survey – 1,009 people were questioned – shows that the age group most concerned is the over-60s, where the share of those who think they will have to cut back on their budget stands at 37%. Also important is the gap between women (36%) and men (22%).

+ Did you emigrate after retiring because you couldn’t make ends meet at home?

Two-thirds of people aged 50-65 (64%) have already taken care of retirement funding, with the frequency increasing with age. But one in five (19%) workers nearing retirement (i.e., over 60) have not yet thought about how they will finance the new phase they are about to experience: the main reason cited for not addressing the issue is lack of money.

When it comes to deciding whether to receive second-pillar retirement assets in the form of a lump sum or an annuity, only 65% of respondents aged 50-65 know the different tax implications. Overall, less than half (36%) of people are able to estimate whether and how much they will inherit: of these, only slightly more than a quarter consider inheritance an essential part of retirement planning.

Only slightly less than a quarter (23%) of the sample is of the opinion that one can finance retirement exclusively from the first and second pillars. The remainder of the Swiss (77%) are aware that a private pension alternative should be used.

+ ‘Swiss pensioners who live abroad in luxury are an exception’ 

Three-quarters of respondents between the ages of 18 and 65 (75%) have opted for a solution in the third pillar: in this area, securities formulas have become increasingly popular in recent years.

“We note with pleasure that large segments of the population have realised that retirement planning is also a private matter,” says Herbert Goll, an AXA executive, quoted in a statement.

Translated from Italian by DeepL/ts

This news story has been written and carefully fact-checked by an external editorial team. At SWI swissinfo.ch we select the most relevant news for an international audience and use automatic translation tools such as DeepL to translate it into English. Providing you with automatically translated news gives us the time to write more in-depth articles.

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