22 percent of respondents in 10X Investment’s first annual Retirement Reality Report began planning for retirement at the beginning of their careers. Photo: File

DURBAN – Only 22 percent of respondents in 10X Investment’s first annual Retirement Reality Report (RRR) began planning for retirement at the beginning of their careers. 

According to the survey, over 50 percent of respondents said they would do it differently if given the chance to start over

10x commissioned Brand Atlas to expand its annual survey of the South African population to gather the data to create the report. 

Brand Atlas samples the universe of 11.9 million economically active South Africans as determined by Statistics SA (people with a monthly income in excess of R7,600) through online completion surveys involving more than 1 million South Africans.

Only 7 percent of the people that were surveyed said they had a proper retirement plan and were executing it. 

Christopher Eddy, Senior Investment Analyst at 10X Investments said: "The fact that 41 percent of respondents said they don’t have a plan at all underlines the scale of this crisis."

10X Investments hopes that collecting and analysing data on South Africa’s retirement reality, keeping an eye on progress from year to year, and reporting the findings widely will bring attention to the problem.

The asset manager also hopes the Retirement Reality Report will create an understanding of the sources of the problem and encourage discussion on steps necessary to improve the situation.

The survey also showed that half of the respondents (46 percent) started planning for retirement only after becoming established with partners and as parents.
 
This means that people have missed out on years of potential compound growth, that could have been attained through regular savings contributions.

“The benefits of starting to save early cannot be stressed enough,” said Eddy. 

He added that starting out early and putting a little away every month and leaving it to grow over the decades is much easier to manage than starting to save late and trying to catch up.

PERSONAL FINANCE