While overall they’re happy to be retired, retirees paint a picture of limited means and possible financial disaster, although workers aged 50 and over are planning either to postpone retirement or continue to work once they have retired.
Those are some of the findings in research from the Transamerica Center for Retirement Studies.
In its report titled “The Current State of Retirement: Pre-Retiree Expectations and Retiree Realities,” Transamerica found that most retirees (60 percent) actually left the workplace earlier than they had anticipated.
While 66 percent citing employment-related reasons including organizational changes at their place of work, job loss, being unhappy with their job or career, or receiving a retirement incentive or buyout, 37 percent said health or family reasons, including ill-health, or family responsibilities such as caregiving were responsible.
Just 16 percent said they were financially able to retire early.
Most retirees surveyed said that their most recent employer didn’t offer them much to help with the transition into retirement.