AXA - Be Life Confident

Research released today by AXA has revealed that working Brits could be placing a heavy burden of responsibility on their children in years to come, by expecting them to support them financially in retirement.

The research shows that one in six (16 per cent) of those already retired and a quarter of working Brits (26 per cent) expect financial support from their children in retirement. When compared internationally, only Polish workers fall below Brits - with 18 per cent expected to support their retired parents. The greatest expectation of financial support is placed on children of those in Hong Kong (95 per cent), India (84 per cent) and Portugal (69 per cent). In the UK, 93 per cent of those still working think regular visits from their children are paramount.

Although over half of working Brits (57 per cent ) think their children should provide material support, they are fairly low down the scale when compared to other countries. As with financial support, expectations of material support are high in Hong Kong (94 per cent), India (94 per cent), and Portugal (82 per cent). Conversely, workers in Poland (22 per cent) have the lowest expectation that children should provide material support

Steve Folkard, head of pensions and savings policy at AXA commented: "The research shows that although Brits may not expect as much from their children as their counterparts around the globe they do anticipate needing a fairly large degree of financial and material support. Couple this with the fact that UK citizens are currently amongst the most heavily indebted in Europe and it is clear that unless savings habits change soon today's young people will be picking up a heavy burden on behalf of their parents. Add to this the prospect of selling or mortgaging the family home to meet expenditure in retirement and today's mortgagees may not be able to rely on a healthy inheritance from their parents to help them on their way."

On top of having to support their parents after retirement, the next generation may be taken aback to realise that six in 10 (63 per cent) of working Brits plan to use up all their savings in retirement, leaving nothing to their heirs. This is a growing trend across the globe with UK sitting 4th behind Spain (79 per cent), Germany (75 per cent) and New Zealand (64 per cent), whereas children in China (68 per cent) or Australia (54 per cent) are most likely to receive an inheritance.

Of those electing not to take out life insurance, 23% said they thought it was too expensive, 21% believed they didn't need it, 11% said they weren't concerned about it yet and 10% said they'd never thought about it.

Steve continues: "There's been a lot of comment about the extent to which people will spend all their savings when they reach retirement and our data suggests that this is not a phenomenon confined to the UK, but is common in many other countries."

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