A majority of people in Finland believe that their statutory pensions won’t materialise as they’d envisioned, according to a fresh survey conducted by pollster Taloustutkimus for the Nordea financial group.
The study found that 70 percent of female respondents believed that their pensions won’t stretch to cover leisure travel, household purchases or even spending on health care and wellbeing in their golden years.
The survey also revealed that half of respondents believed that their pension income would decrease as a result of government’s planned pension reforms.
Currently individuals who have worked for all of their adult lives will accrue about half of their total pay packets as pensions. Average pension payouts are about 1,500 euros per month.
Roughly one quarter of those interviewed for the study said they estimated that their pensions would decrease by between 100 and 150 euros each month.
Many plan to save for a rainy (retirement) day
Although 90 percent of interviewees said it was important to have supplemental funds to help get them through their retirement, only half had done anything to save for their twilight years, the survey showed.
Nordea manager Risto Kuoppamäki said that as a result of the government’s pension reform, about sixty percent of residents in Finland plan to save separately to help finance their retirement years.
The internet-based survey polled the views of just over 1,000 employed individuals between the ages of 23 and 65.
Last autumn, government and labour market organisations agreed on a number of reforms to the exitsting pensions system, most notably to increase the retirement age on a sliding scale, with the new pensionable age set at 65 for persons born from 1955 onwards.
However the union federation representing skilled workers - Akava - opted out of the talks. Once approved by Parliament, the new system will be rolled out from 2017.