Sixty per cent expect to work past 65: poll
More Canadians expect to be working past age 65 than expect to be retired, a new poll has found.
The annual Sun Life poll showed about 60 per cent of respondents anticipated they would be working either full or part-time when they reach 65, compared with 27 per cent who plan on being fully retired by that age.
Sun Life Financial says it’s the first time since it started the survey seven years ago that the number of Canadians polled who expect to still be working full-time past the normal retirement age (32 per cent) has surpassed the number of those who expect to be retired (27 per cent).
The survey showed 27 per cent of respondents expected to be working part-time, 12 per cent did not know whether they would still be working and one per cent did not expect to be alive at 65.
The top reasons given by those polled as to why they would still be working were: paying for basic living expenses (21 per cent), a lack of confidence in adequate government benefits (18 per cent) and the desire to work in order to “live well” (16 per cent).
The survey found the average expected age for retirement among those polled was 64 — the lowest age it has been since 2009. In last year’s survey, the average expected age for retirement was 66.
The Sun Life poll was conducted online by Ipsos Reid with a sample of 3,000 working Canadians between 30 to 65 years old from Dec. 5 to 22.
The polling industry’s professional body, the Marketing Research and Intelligence Association, says online surveys cannot be assigned a margin of error as they are not a random sample and therefore are not necessarily representative of the whole population.