SINGAPORE: The Natixis Global Retirement Index (GRI) publishes a ranking each year of the 25 countries with the best practices when it comes to one’s senior years.
This year, for the first time, Singapore has made the list, debuting in 25th place due to an improvement in its scores.
The GRI is based on four important categories— Health, Finances in Retirement, Material Well-being, and Quality of Life.
Switzerland, with a score of 82 per cent, topped the list, followed by Norway (81 per cent), Iceland (81 per cent), and Ireland (80 per cent). The Netherlands, with a score of 79 per cent, rounds out the top five.
Meanwhile, Singapore scored 67 per cent this year, an improvement of 2 percentage points from last year, when it was 26th on the list, and 5 percentage points from 2014, when it was 28th.
Singapore’s highest rating is for Health, where it scored 88 per cent, an improvement of 6 percentage points from last year, causing the city-state to leap from 19th place to 13th place for this sub-index.
The index credits the rise in score to substantial improvements in the health expenditure per capita and insured health expenditure indicators.
Moreover, Singapore is now among the top five countries in terms of life expectancy.
In the category of Material Well-being, Singapore’s score rose by three percentage points to 56 per cent this year, in large part due to an improvement in income equality, though it still lags behind other countries.
Singapore also scored well in terms of unemployment and income per capita.
While Singapore also showed an improvement of one percentage point for the Quality of Life sub-index, it still ranks 40th in the overall index.
With regards to Finances in Retirement, Singapore saw a slight drop in its score from 2023 (73 per cent) to 2024 (72 per cent). Nevertheless, it is still among the top five countries in this category.
The index noted the “shaky ground” retirement security is on at present, with more and more people in different countries coming to the realization that they are on their own in paying for their retirement.
In 2015, only 67 per cent of people surveyed considered it their responsibility to fund their retirement years, as opposed to depending on public and private pensions. By 2023, this number had grown to 81 per cent.
It also noted that nearly one in five (19 per cent) said that even if they had US$1 million (S$1.35 million) saved, they still would not be able to afford to retire. Among them, 18 per cent had already put away US$1 million in savings. /TISG
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