A new survey reveals Canadians approaching retirement are an optimistic group, with 87% stating that the word retirement should be redefined because it doesn’t mean today what it meant years ago.

That’s according to the preliminary findings of the “BMO Retirement Trends Study, which the bank says is the most comprehensive survey on Canadian retirement compiled to date.

The survey, conducted for Bank of Montreal, by Ipsos Reid, canvassed 5,325 Canadian financial decision-makers 45 and over.

“The survey illustrates a population that is both positive and confident in their expectations. However, the telling statement about the ‘new retirement’ is that pre-retirees expect to keep working into their so-called retirement years,” said Caroline Dabu, vp, marketing and client strategy, BMO Financial Group, in a release.

“The consistent theme tying all of these stories together has been a fundamental desire to stop talking about stereotypical and often idealistic notions of retirement. To not look at retirement as a fixed point in time, but as a transition between fulltime work and active retirement.”

The survey findings include:

  • Contrary to the perception of people feeling anxious about retirement, there is a sense of optimism shared by both retirees and pre-retirees. The top phrases selected by both groups to describe retirement, included “freedom,” “more leisure time,” “the next stage of my life,” “fun” and “confidence”.
  • Ideally, pre-retirees and retirees would prefer not to work.
  • In reality, pre-retirees will work more than their older counterparts. When pre-retirees were asked about working after traditional retirement, 58% plan on working for an employer in some capacity and 50% expect to spend some time working for their own or family business when they retire. Only 16% of current retirees spend a great deal or some time working for an employer.
  • The primary reason pre-retirees expect to be working in retirement is to be “mentally active”.
  • Canadians become more charitable with age. The likelihood of spending or expecting to spend a great deal of time “doing non-profit work or charitable work” increases with age: 15% of those 45-54, 16% of those 55-64, 23% of those 65-70 and 22% of those 70-plus spend and expect to spend a great deal of time on this activity.
  • Two thirds of retirees and pre-retirees have or will have debt in retirement.


    • “The traditional approach to retirement planning has not only been narrow and formulaic; it has been based on outdated assumptions about what retirement looks like. Retirement planning has been focused primarily on asset accumulation. What our research shows is that there also needs to be an emphasis on planning for the income needed during the transition from a career and during active retirement,” said Dabu.

    Also unveiled today was the BMO Financial Group Retirement Your Way web site, found at www.bmo.com/retirementyourway.

    The new site provides an overview of the new realities to consider in the retirement planning process, supplemented with case studies and external resources that will be updated on an ongoing basis.

    http://www.newswire.ca/en/releases/archive/December2005/07/c4184.html