What do individuals think about compulsory preservation funding?

Abstract

What are the thoughts of individuals regarding the proposed retirement fund reform? Has rising levels of debt in South African households begun to eat into our future retirement savings? This paper walks through South Africa’s retirement fund history, taking us to the present day’s retirement fund reform proposals, notably compulsory preservation funding, before describing the low savings and high debt environment which also provides challenges for policy makers.The high cost of not preserving retirement benefits is shown and contrasted to retirement fund costs. Stakeholders are considered before the description of individual attitudes, views and opinions takes place. Finally the association between the presence of debt and past actions and future desires relating to the use of retirement fund monies when changing jobs is shown.