Millennials are the next generation of pension savers and they will be the first generation to benefit in full from automatic enrolment. As such we undertook research as we felt it was vital not only to understand how this age group approach long-term saving but also what stopped them saving more.
We commissioned ComRes to conduct two waves of research with UK adults aged 18 to 35. The first wave was conducted between 25 July and 4 August 2016 with 962 people and the second wave was conducted between 9 and 20 February 2017 with 1,001 people.
Key findings from the research are:
- Half of millennials are saving into a pension (workplace or private) – 49% in wave 1 and 50% in wave 2;
- Half of them are also saving money (aside from into a pension)– 48% in wave 1 and 49% in wave 2; and
- Only 1 in 10 millennials are borrowing money in an average month – 11% in wave 1 and 12% in wave 2.
However the research has also identified that women millennials are less confident about their finances than their male counterparts:
- They are less optimistic about their career advancement (55% of women are confident compared to 61% of men);
- They are more likely to report their salary going down in the last 6 months (14% of women compared to 8% of men); and
- They are more likely to report the pressure to save for the future having increased in the last 6 months (51% of women compared to 36% of men).
The findings show that employers need to be improving confidence in retirement choices, especially as with the advent of automatic enrolment, more women are being encouraged to save than ever before.
PLSA press releases from this research can be found here, here and here.
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Millennials infographic
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