This Thursday, Dress, Department of Research, Studies, Evaluation and Statistics, publishes a new study on anticipating the amount of pension before retiring. As a result, more than 50% of people who retired between July 2019 and June 2020 poorly anticipated their pension amount.
This is a new large-scale study carried out by Drees. It was carried out among 5,400 people residing in France and having liquidated their direct pension in one of the four basic schemes between July 1, 2019 and June 30, 2020: the general scheme, private sector employees, two civil servant schemes, and the pension fund for SNCF agents.
It appears in particular that almost three quarters of new withdrawals (72%) declared that they had a precise or approximate idea of the amount of their pension. Among them, almost two thirds ultimately received an amount roughly equivalent to that which had been anticipated, 20% a lower amount and 6% a higher amount.
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A lack of information
It is therefore a little more than half of the new withdrawals who have not or who have incorrectly estimated the level of their future pension, explains this survey.
24% of retirees not satisfied with the level of information they received regarding their pension rights
The main reason for this is the lack of information. A person is 4 times more likely to have no idea of the amount they will receive if they consider themselves poorly informed, and 3.3 times more likely to overestimate their future pension. Despite the systems put in place to promote information to policyholders, 24% of those withdrawing were not satisfied with the level of information they received regarding their retirement rights, explains the study.
Future withdrawals can be even more difficult to anticipate the future amount of their pension if they are multi-pensioners, that is to say members of several schemes with different rules. The complexity of the retirement system also lies in the diversity of existing and sometimes unknown systems, particularly in terms of solidarity, adds Dress.
Small withdrawals more often regret not leaving later
According to the authors of the survey, estimation difficulties are more often caused by women, workers and people of modest means. Conversely, executives better anticipate their pension amounts.
Another lesson: a fifth (21%) of respondents recognize that with hindsight, they would have preferred to leave later in order to receive a higher pension. On the other hand, 5% would have preferred to leave sooner, even if it meant losing their pension.
Regretting not having left later is more common among single people, particularly women (27%) and people with relatively modest pension levels (26%), underlines the Drees.
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