Description: Presented at Living to 100 and Beyond symposium in January 2002. Discusses the impact of longer life spans on families, business, society, and programs to help support the elderly.

Description: This article provides a perspective on the SOA’s Aging and Retirement research reports, and on the types of research that are included. The SOA does a lot of research on different retirement topics, and many people are not aware of the scope of this work. This article offers an overview of the big picture as we think about the future. The article describes longer-term challenges to the US retirement system and recent developments that have affected the system and created uncertainty. It provides an overview of what individuals have said about retirement and their view of post-retirement risks and planning in a variety of consumer research studies. It then reviews some of the research and provides information on summary reports which provide insight on the findings from multiple related research reports. It also provides information about consumer education and what is currently available and in process. It then focuses on how the SOA is helping retirement professionals understand current and expected change and discusses areas of uncertainty as we help those we serve deal with change.

Description: The purpose of the latest in this series, the 2005 Risks and Process of Retirement Survey, is to evaluate Americans’ awareness of such risks, how their awareness has changed since 2003, and how it affects the way they manage their finances. This report focuses on attitudes toward longevity specifically in the context of planning for and managing the financial risk of outliving assets in retirement, and relates the public’s understanding of these issues to other studies. Three other reports cover in greater depth the process of retirement, other post-retirement risks, and retirement issues of special concern to women. The 2001, 2003 and 2005 studies separately analyzed current retirees and those not yet retired, referred to in these reports as ‘pre-retirees.’