Canadian pension wealth grew by 9.3% in 2014, driven primarily by the strong performance of international equity markets, Statistics Canada announced on Wednesday.
Total pension wealth — including social security programs, employer-based pensions, and individual registered savings plans — rose by $280 billion in 2014 to $3.3 trillion, according to a StatsCan report. The gains came in all three tiers of the pension system, and the agency says that this was largely due to international equity market performance.
The smallest component of overall pension wealth, social security, saw its assets grow fastest, while private savings grew the slowest, the StatsCan report shows. The wealth in social security plans rose 17.6% (or $44 billion) during the year to $292 billion, the StatsCan report says. In contrast, wealth in employer-based pension plans rose 8.9% (or $153 billion) to $1.9 trillion, and the assets in individual registered saving plans increased 8.1% (or $83 billion) to $1.1 trillion by the end of 2014.
Given the much faster growth in social security assets, the combined assets of employer-based pensions and individual savings plans slipped to 91.1% of total pension wealth at the end of 2014, compared with 91.7% in 2013. Pension wealth accounted for 57.4% of total financial assets held by Canadian households at the end of 2014, up from the 57.1% in 2013, the StatsCan report indicates.
As well, pension plan contributions grew by 4.1% in 2014, the StatsCan report notes, which was down from a 5.3% gain in 2013. In 2014, contributions grew by 5.2% for employer-based plans, it reports; and, contributions grew by 3.5% for individual savings plans, and 2.9% for social security plans.