The future is seen very bleak if Raiffeisen statistics are to be believed. The bank carried out a survey of 1,500 adults on the subject of pensions. Result: a majority of those under forty have completely lost hope of leaving working life at age 65 or younger. The youngest even think that they will have to work until they are 70 years old. And yet, the dream of taking early retirement is there: almost 57% of people aged between 18 and 59 would like to retire from working life before the official reference age.
However, their knowledge on the subject leaves something to be desired, especially among young people. The study highlights significant shortcomings on the part of respondents regarding the functioning of the three-pillar system. Future pensioners are well aware that taking early retirement is expensive, but they do not know, for example, that almost a third of pension fund assets are saved between the ages of 58 and 65. A third of adults under 30 do not know that people without gainful employment must save for the AVS, otherwise they risk losing years of contributions.
Illiteracy which can be explained by a lack of financial education, according to Éric Joubert, advisor at Swiss Serenity. The professional deplores that “without the right administrative procedures, their assets risk ending up with the Supplementary Institution Foundation, whose interest is only 0.4%, which is very little, and does not cover inflation .” The man believes that the situation is going from bad to worse: “As the years go by, the welfare and retirement system becomes more fragile due to the growing number of people reaching retirement age. The Swiss population is not yet used to having to worry about their retirement and take charge of it.”
