Nearly one in six people have either reduced the amount they pay into their pension or stopped contributions altogether over the past five years, a new survey suggests.
The sharp cutback in saving will mean some 27% of retirees over the next decade will rely on the state pension and their own savings – up from 22% this year, according to the survey from Prudential.
The decline in final salary pension schemes appears to be the main problem, with 9% of the survey's 1000 respondents having moved out of such a plan over the past five years.
Some 42% of people planning to retire this year said they had most of their savings in a final salary scheme, falling to 35% for those planning to retire over the next decade.
‘It’s worrying that many people who have been working for years and saving for retirement seem to have given up hope and stopped paying into their pension,’ Martyn Bogira, director of defined contribution solutions at Prudential said.
‘It’s also really worrying that many people either planning to retire imminently or within the next decade still believe the state will support them when we know that, for many people, this won’t be the case