"You don't have to be born lucky with money as you start out in order to retire early," said Katie Libbe, vice president of consumer insights at Allianz Life. "The people that plan to retire early did just that. They made it a priority. They made it a plan."
Having children also did not appear to affect people's plans to retire early, even though raising a child to age 18 costs
close to a quarter of a million dollars. Some 87 percent of those
intending to retire early had children, in line with those not ready to
stop working.
Allianz Life commissioned the January 2014 survey of 4,500 people with incomes of more than $50,000, and it has since released several sets of findings. In this batch, 25.9 percent of the respondents said they intend to retire before age 65.
The average retirement age has barely budged for a decade, according to the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College, and in 2013 stood at 64 for men and 62 for women. Meanwhile, participation in the labor force for people over age 65 has been increasing for years, and stood at 22.1 percent for men and 13.8 percent for women in 2010, up from 17.7 percent for men and 9.4 percent for women in 2000.
But that doesn't mean early retirement is out of the question. Here
are six of the most common behaviors Allianz Life found that early
retirees share:
Have happy marriages.
Early retirees tended to describe themselves as in sync with their
spouse. Some 76 percent of these people were married, compared to 68
percent of the people who never planned to retire, and they were also
more likely to be in their first marriage. And 90 percent of early
retirees found it at least somewhat easy to talk about money with a
spouse or significant other, well above the 77 percent of people
planning to never retire.
Allianz Life's data are in line with findings in an earlier study
for the National Institutes of Health that found a happy marriage
played a clear role in a decision to retire early. "After traditional
economic factors, marital satisfaction actually turned out to be the
strongest predictor of retirement timing," the researchers wrote.
Appreciate what they have. People
planning to retire early were significantly more likely to describe
themselves as wealthy or financially comfortable, but that depends on
their perspective, Libbe said. "One person might be able to live on
$50,000 a year and consider themselves affluent, versus another couple
that needs $200,000 a year."
Follow their parents' example.
The would-be early retirers in the Allianz Life survey were more likely
to compare their financial situation to their parents', with 21 percent
of them doing so, compared to 14 percent of those not planning to
retire. They also tended to emulate their parents' money behaviors.
Teach their kids about money.
Only 14 percent of people planning to retire early taught their
children about money and finances, but that was well above the 6 percent
of people not planning to retire who did so.
Keep calm and carry on. Having
a fairly calm financial life also seems to encourage people to plan
early retirement. Some 46 percent of those people said they had not
experienced financial hardship as an adult, versus just 31 percent of
those planning to stay in the workforce.
Worry about an early death.
On the downside, early retirees were more likely than other workers to
worry about dying young. Only 47 percent of them worried about running
out of money in retirement, but 53 percent worried that they would not
live long after they retired. (Among people who planned to not retire or
wait until age 65 or later, at least 53 percent worried about outliving
their money.)
Worries about
dying young may be valid for some people planning to retire early, but
the good news is that leaving the workforce won't hasten the process.
Researchers at the Australian School of Business at the University of
New South Wales studied
the effect of early retirement on life expectancy and found that
"retirement age in itself has no significant effect on subsequent
mortality."
Culled from CNBC
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