Seventy-two per cent of retired Australians believe a long-term approach to retirement saving is needed, compared with only 55% globally, investment manager BlackRock found in its Global Investor Pulse Survey.
“The surprising thing was the degree to which retirees would advise the younger generations as to what to do to accumulate wealth. They were very outspoken as to what they would do differently,” BlackRock managing director Mark Oliver said.
He puts this down to Australia having created a community with an engaged investor base.
“Here, we’ve had a generation of retirees which has been more involved in their wealth accumulation strategy, given Australia has had superannuation guarantee for a number of decades.”
The older generation’s advice to the younger is to start investing early, pay down debt, and use a professional’s advice, he said.
The survey included 17,600 respondents, 1,000 of them Australian.
Key findings included:
- When asked to rank their top concerns about their financial future, the state of the Australian economy was number one, followed closely by job security and having to spend more than they earned. Priorities differed with income
- Investment property ownership in Australia sits at 15% of those surveyed, whereas European and North American averages are at 10%. For more affluent Australians the rate of ownership increased to 35%
