A man reads a newspaper while sitting on a promenade that runs along Victoria Harbour in Hong Kong on Dec 14, 2020.
(ANTHONY WALLACE / AFP)
Hong Kong people are far less confident about their retirement prospects because of the pandemic, while the younger generation is falling short in mid- to long-term financial planning, according to a recent survey.
Seventy percent of respondents in the FTLife survey said they lack confidence in their retirement goals amid the pandemic,a four-fold increase over the pre-COVID-19 level.
Seventy percent of respondents in the FTLife survey said they lack confidence in their retirement goals amid the pandemic,a four-fold increase over the pre-COVID-19 level
The top three retirement worries were rising medical expenses, the lack of a stable income, and managing expenses, according to the survey.
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While a quarter of the participants said their investment awareness has grown amid the uncertainties, over 40 percent are concerned about how to make sensible investment decisions because of they lack suitable knowledge about investment products, it added.
The survey results also showed that younger people are less aware of wealth management. Nearly 60 percent of the younger respondents, aged 20 to 29, said they didn’t know how to do mid- to long-term wealth planning. Over 70 percent said that they have no regular saving habits, compared to 17 percent of those aged 30 and over.
The survey also showed that people in Hong Kong had become more risk-adverse in investment strategies amid the economic uncertainties. Nearly two-fifths of those surveyed preferred to hold cash savings while more than half wanted a stable income in retirement.
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The Retirement Planning and Confidence Survey used street interviews to collect data from 405 working people aged 20 or above and who had a personal monthly income above HK$20,000 (US$3,090). The survey was conducted in December by a market research company commissioned by FTLife.
The unemployment rate hit a 16-year high of 6.6 percent in the final quarter of 2020, with the city scrambling to fight the fourth wave of coronavirus infections, figures from the Census and Statistics Department showed.
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xinlanzeng@chinadailyhk.com