No Thought for Tomorrow: Young Australian Adults' Knowledge, Behaviour and Attitudes About Superannuation

Abstract

While Australia’s superannuation scheme is a fundamental part of supporting and sustaining Australia’s increasingly aging and retiring population, young Australians demonstrate consistently poor knowledge of, and behaviour and attitudes towards, superannuation. This study is the first large-scale study of superannuation knowledge, behaviour and attitudes among a representative sample of the general young adult population in Australia. The picture that emerges is generally worse than other studies to date. Young people generally lack a basic understanding of how superannuation operates, do not engage much with their superannuation funds and have poor or uncertain expectations about their prospects for retirement and superannuation’s place within an overall retirement plan. The article presents the results and analysis from our survey and considers what those findings suggest about improvements in the provision of information and advice about superannuation.

Keywords: superannuation knowledge; superannuation behaviour; young adults