According to a recent Franklin Templeton survey, about 80% of respondents said their retirement vision is changing – and that the future of retirement is different for everyone.

So, what does that mean exactly? How is retirement changing and what will it look like in the future? In short, what is the future of retirement?

Traditional retirement, like what our grandparents had, is – for the most part – not something many Generation X or Millennial workers envision for themselves. And these changes are fairly recently, with many of the 1,007 working adults surveyed saying that their vision of retirement has changed in the last year alone and that they have different financial goals as well.

This Voice of the American Worker Survey also showed that many workers think that retirement looks different for everyone and that there is no single path to it, but that traditional retirement – working for a set number of years and then quitting work altogether – isn’t what most people expect to experience.

Many of the workers surveyed said their most important financial milestones were:

  1. Financial Freedom
  2. Financial independence

And they went on to say that financial independence was more empowering than retirement. Workers said they wanted enough money to live comfortably until the end of their life – and to be able to have enough money to stop working when they want to stop working — could this be the future of retirement?

Retirement was mostly associated with free time and old age by those surveyed, while financial independence was mostly associated with success, happiness and fulfilment.

Those saving for their future are doing it because it helps give them peace of mind – mental and physical health and wellbeing.

And just like some employers offer assistance for physical and mental health, those surveyed said they want their employer to offer tools for financial wellbeing as well, providing guidance on things like investing, retirement planning and more.

Has your retirement vision or goals changed? Do you agree with this survey? We’d like to know.

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