Wealthy Singaporeans shunning traditional retirement

The latest Insights report from Barclays Wealth revealed that 56% of the country’s high net worth individuals believe they will never retire while 7 out of 10 strongly feel financially responsible for their children.

The report, entitled The Age Illusion: How the Wealthy are Redefining Their Retirement, also noted that 56% of HNWIs plan to become a so-called Nevertiree, continuing to involve themselves in commercial and professional work in their later years.

The results were based on a global survey of more than 2,000 HNWIs, with 500 respondents from Asia Pacific, and of which 100 are from Singapore.

The report noted that Asians in general are valuing the freedom to try out new activities once they reach retirement. “Across Asia, the most significant reason that influenced the respondents’ decision to stop working permanently was a desire to spend time doing something different (90%),” it said.

Factors for retirement

In Singapore, the top three reasons cited by the respondents in deciding to stop working permanently were ill health (95%), a desire to do something different (93%) and having made enough money (91%). The report observed, “While health is an important factor impacting retirement, with 83% of respondents citing this, the strong response from Singapore respondents towards making enough money (82%) can perhaps be inferred to be one of the key influencers driving Singapore HNWIs working beyond the country’s defined retirement age of 62.”

Manpreet Gill, Asia Strategist, said: “This attitude amongst wealthy individuals is not surprising considering the wealth of opportunities that these economies have thrown up as a result of strong economic growth, particularly here in Asia and Singapore. We believe this high pace of economic activity will sustain over a long period of time, so we would not be surprised to see this trend continue.”

Ensuring wealth for future generations

The highest number of HNWIs who felt they were financially responsible for their children were from Singapore (73%), underscoring the country’s strong family values and is significantly higher compared to 56% in Asia Pacific and the global average of 57%.

These latest Singapore findings build on the eleventh volume in the Barclays Wealth Insights series, The Changing Wealth of Nations, which found that Singaporean HNWIs saw supporting family financially as the most significant motivating factor (95%) to build wealth. The previous report also revealed that paying for their children’s education ranked as the third highest spending priority (63%).

This is despite the fact that in Singapore, local HNWIs sentiments are more optimistic with a higher proportion of respondents saying they felt financially secure (90%) and 82% of them confident that they would have enough money for retirement.

Srinivas Siripurupapu, Managing Director and Head of Southeast and South Asia, said: “We can perhaps infer from these findings that Singapore’s HNWIs want to ensure wealth for their future generations and therefore continue to remain at work well into their later years.”