Two-thirds of Canadians who plan to retire say their RRSPs will be their source of retirement funding (65%), yet half of Canadians say they do not plan to contribute to their RRSPs this tax season (49%).
Those findings are from Bank of Nova Scotia’s annual investment poll.
In addition to their RRSPs, top sources of retirement funding for Canadians include their savings (60%), the government (57%), work pension (52%) and selling their home (22%).
Two-thirds of those who expect to retire say they are concerned about not having enough money to support their retirement (68%).
Four in 10 of those who expect to retire in the future (41%) think they will need less than $300,000 for their ideal retirement. Over the past five years, Canadians say they have saved an average of $24,469 (this is down from the $31,824 they reported saving over a five year period in 2011).
The study also found that four-in-10 Canadians who are currently saving for retirement (44%) have been doing so for the past 1-10 years. As well, more people are setting aside less than $200 each month (43% vs. 34% in 2011).
Additional findings from the study found that while many Canadians say they are optimistic about the future of the Canadian economy (46%), a growing number of Canadians who have yet to retire say they have pushed back their planned retirement age because of the state of the economy (33% vs. 27% in 2011).
The majority of those planning to hold off on retiring say they have pushed their retirement back by 5-9 years (58%). A smaller group of Canadians say they plan to push it back by 10 or more years (27%).
The 2012 Scotiabank Investment Poll was conducted online using Harris/Decima’s proprietary panel. A total of 1,003 surveys were conducted from a random sample of panel members aged 18 years and over across Canada. The study was conducted from Nov. 28 to Dec. 13, 2012.