To live to one hundred, we must not postpone our choices: the paradox of retirement between awareness and inertia
Canadian poet Mark Strand once wrote that the future isn’t what it used to be. And yet, one could argue that it is almost predictable. The future settles over time, often quietly. Then one day, however, it presents the bill. Humphrey Yang knows this well. Before becoming a social media content creator, he worked as a financial advisor in the United States. Then he decided to leave the traditional profession to explain finance differently, using the language of the digital generation. In his videos he explains pensions, inflation, index funds, and retirement planning using everyday objects, sheets of paper, and hand‑drawn charts. A form of pedagogy that is simple and yet extremely powerful.
Yang belongs to a new generation of financial educators who understood something very simple: people don’t need more technical jargon—they need understandable stories. In his most-viewed videos, he shows how compound interest works with concrete examples: two workers with the same salary, one who starts investing at twenty-five and one who delays for twenty years. The final outcome is almost always surprising. The first accumulates a far larger amount of capital not because they earn more, but because they started earlier. It’s a message that perfectly summarizes the mathematics of time. Yang repeats this often: the real resource in retirement planning is not return, but time. And unlike financial markets, time never goes backwards. Today his channel has millions of followers across YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram, becoming one of the international benchmarks in so‑called digital financial literacy. It is no coincidence that many American universities and several economic media outlets have begun citing creators like Yang as new cultural intermediaries between finance and society. Because the real problem with retirement planning—before being financial—is linguistic: for too long, it has been described using incomprehensible language.
Forbidden to Wait
Yang explains it with a sentence that sums everything up: “If you wait too long to invest, time stops working for you.” That’s how this creator turns on the camera and begins to explain a topic that for decades remained confined to technical documents or branch offices: pensions. His popularity reflects more than just a social phenomenon. It signals a cultural shift. For decades, retirement was perceived as a technical, almost bureaucratic matter. Today it has become a public, shared, narrated topic. The reason is simple: meanwhile, a global problem has emerged—one that economists and international institutions have begun calling by a specific name: the retirement savings gap. Literally translated, it means “gap in pension savings.” In reality, it describes something very concrete: the distance between what people are currently saving for their future and what will actually be needed to sustain an increasingly long life.
It’s no coincidence we are talking about Yang and what is happening in the United States. Because overseas, a recurring scene is common: a worker nearing sixty who opens their pension account statement for the first time and discovers that the accumulated capital will not be enough to maintain the lifestyle they had imagined. This dynamic is documented, analyzed, measured. In America, this scene has a precise name: statement shock. It is the moment when the saver realizes that the accumulated amount, even after decades of contributions, will not cover a life expectancy that now exceeds eighty years. Longevity—an extraordinary health and social achievement—thus becomes a financial variable. Living longer means financing more years of life without labor income.
Life at One Hundred
In its report “We’ll Live to 100 – How Can We Afford It?”, the World Economic Forum turned this widespread perception into a number: 70 trillion dollars in retirement savings gap across major mature pension systems as early as 2015. Without structural reforms, the projection rises to 400 trillion dollars by 2050. This isn’t a statistical footnote but a mortgage on the future.
The report analyzes countries like the United States, the United Kingdom, Japan, Canada, Australia, the Netherlands, and China. In all of these contexts, the combination of rising life expectancy, declining birth rates, and labor market transformation creates increasing tension between public sustainability and individual responsibility. If people live to one hundred, as the report suggests, pension systems can no longer be designed with twentieth-century logic. The issue is therefore structural, not episodic.
The OECD’s Pensions at a Glance delves deeper into this transformation with comparative data. Increasing retirement ages, stricter contribution-based mechanisms, and the gradual reduction of replacement rates relative to final salary are common features in many advanced economies. The first public pillar does not disappear, but it shrinks. It becomes a base—not a ceiling. In many pension systems, the weight of individual contributions has increased significantly over the past two decades. This means that the quality of future pensions increasingly depends on decisions made during one's working life: contribution continuity, contribution level, participation in supplementary plans.
The Financial Times has repeatedly described this tension between awareness and concrete difficulty. In articles about millennials and Generation Z, the newspaper highlights how younger generations clearly understand that the public system will not guarantee the same level of coverage enjoyed by previous generations. However, stagnant wages, a rising cost of living, student debt, and job insecurity make long-term planning difficult. The result is a global paradox: we know we should save more, but we struggle to do so. Moreover, we know longevity is an opportunity, but we don’t finance its consequences. We know the first pillar will not be enough, yet we postpone joining the second or third. In this scenario, behavioral finance provides a powerful interpretive lens.
Facilitating Decision-Making Contexts
This was clearly articulated by Nobel laureate Richard Thaler, who dedicated much of his research to explaining why individuals do not behave like perfectly rational agents. In 2017, the Royal Swedish Academy awarded him the Nobel Prize in Economics for his contributions to behavioral economics, recognizing the impact of his analysis on the interaction between psychology and economics.
In Nudge, co-written with Cass Sunstein, Thaler introduced the concept of choice architecture. The idea is simple but revolutionary: the way options are presented significantly influences decisions. We are not calculating machines. We are humans prone to cognitive biases. One of the most relevant in retirement planning is inertia. Thaler observed that in the absence of automatic enrollment in company pension plans, many workers postpone joining even when they acknowledge its importance. It is not an active choice against retirement savings. It is a non-choice—procrastination.
Thaler’s empirical studies document how auto‑enrolment (automatic enrollment with the option to opt out) significantly increases participation rates. Human beings tend to stay in the status quo. If the status quo is being enrolled, participation rises. If the status quo is not being enrolled, inertia leads to exclusion.
Another key contribution is the Save More Tomorrow program, developed with Shlomo Benartzi. The idea is to link increases in pension contributions to future salary raises. This way, the worker does not perceive a reduction in current disposable income and automatically allocates a portion of future increases to retirement savings. U.S. experimental results show significant increases in savings rates among participants.
Thaler often summarizes his approach with an effective phrase: “Make it easy.” If you want people to save, simplify the process. Reduce friction. Make the right choice the easiest choice. This approach is particularly relevant in the field of retirement, where regulatory complexity, technical products, and long time horizons create psychological distance. The future feels distant, the present feels urgent. Thaler’s lesson is clear: providing information alone is not enough. We must design decision‑making environments that facilitate action.
Time and the Invisible Gap
Let’s return to the future, which despite everything remains predictable. It never arrives suddenly—we’ve said it: it accumulates, it settles, and then one day presents the bill. Here lies the deeper meaning of that term that has become central in the global economic debate: retirement savings gap. Let’s explain it even more clearly: it is the expression used in economics and pension policy to indicate the difference between what a person (or a country) has actually saved for retirement and what would be necessary to maintain an adequate standard of living after leaving work. In other words, the retirement savings gap is the distance between the money we have put aside and the money we will actually need when we stop working. It is not a technical formula for specialists but the snapshot of a growing imbalance between what we set aside today and what we will need tomorrow to live with dignity.
Then there is work—or rather, the new nature of work. The linear study‑work‑retirement model belongs to the twentieth century. Today, careers are fragmented, mobile, hybrid. Periods of self‑employment, part‑time work, transitions between industries, contribution gaps. The World Economic Forum directly connects the retirement savings gap to labor market transformation: irregular contributions produce lower accumulated amounts, therefore weaker pensions. The system was designed for stable careers. The real world no longer is.
The retirement savings gap is measured on multiple levels. At the macro level, it is the difference between aggregate resources and future estimated needs, calculated using demographic models and economic projections like those used by the World Economic Forum. At the individual level, it is the gap between accumulated capital and what is needed to sustain one's lifestyle in retirement.
This calculation involves retirement age, life expectancy, investment returns, and contribution continuity. Not everyone is exposed in the same way. The OECD highlights how women are generally more vulnerable due to more discontinuous careers, lower salaries, and higher longevity. Self‑employed workers and low-income earners also face greater risks, as they have less capacity to save and less robust collective coverage.
But the key point is that the retirement savings gap is not only an individual problem—it is a systemic risk. According to the World Economic Forum, a large gap can create future fiscal pressures, increased dependence on public transfers, lower consumption in old age, and wider intergenerational inequality. This is not just a pension issue—it is a matter of economic stability and social cohesion.
Possible responses? Strengthen automatic enrollment in supplementary plans, invest in financial education, adjust retirement age to longevity, incentivize additional pillars. But above all, redesign the architecture of choices, as Richard Thaler teaches.
The retirement savings gap is not an abstract formula. It is the story of a generation that lives longer, works differently, and often postpones the most important decisions. It is the economic translation of a very simple and very uncomfortable cultural question: how willing are we to design our tomorrow instead of hoping it will somehow fix itself?
More Aware, Less Active
Understanding how Italians imagine their own future is therefore the first step in creating tools that truly respond to their needs. This is the premise behind Sella SGR’s research on sustainable retirement, conducted in collaboration with Research Dogma to promote a culture of long-term financial planning and previously presented on Sella Insights.
The survey—conducted on a sample of 2,000 people aged 25 to 65—captures a country that is aware of the importance of investing in its retirement future (a significant 88% of respondents) but still not very active: fewer than 10% know their contribution status, while 70% would like to receive personalized advice to plan their financial and retirement future.
Despite this awareness, almost half—specifically 43%—admit they have not yet taken any concrete action to address the issue. This lack of initiative also reflects a poor understanding of one’s pension situation, as reported by Corriere della Sera.
“Retirement must now be considered an aspect that deeply influences and integrates into the social fabric of our country, and not just an economic issue,” says Mario Romano, CEO of Sella SGR.
This is precisely the point: the gap between awareness and action highlights the need to invest not only in advisory services but also in widespread knowledge. To bridge this distance, people need more financial education and clear, accessible tools that can guide them in planning their future.
“The data from our research, which reveal an Italy still poorly informed on these topics, highlight the urgency of strengthening awareness and making retirement planning tools more accessible—tools capable of offering people long-term stability and peace of mind. Most Italians are aware of the future challenges related to pensions but often ignore the true scale of the issue or where to begin addressing it, resulting in postponed decisions. The challenge for those of us working in this field is to transform uncertainty into knowledge, and knowledge into concrete action, helping people plan their future with sustainable and effective tools,” Romano explains.
Thus, the data must be read as the gap between intention and behavior.
72% of the sample say they do not know—or know only vaguely—what their public pension amount will be. Only 9% have a clear idea.
In other words: the majority have never conducted a precise check of their contribution position.
Even more striking is the 43% who admit they have taken no concrete action to address the issue. We know the system is under pressure, but we postpone planning. It is the inertia bias applied to retirement.
The Value of Trust
The case of the TFR (severance pay) is emblematic. 49% of employees keep it in the company. Not always as a conscious choice. 32% believe it is “safer” there, 17% do not trust pension funds, 18% are not aware that they can invest it. This is not just distrust. It is a problem of language and accessibility. If nearly one in five workers does not know they can allocate their TFR to a pension fund, it means the information architecture is still ineffective.
Among those who fear that the public pension will not be sufficient, 58% do not know how to close the gap. This is precisely the point at which awareness stops and action fails to begin. The research also highlights differences by gender and education level.
Distrust regarding the adequacy of future pensions is stronger among women (reaching 60%) and among those with lower education levels, as also reported by Il Sole 24 Ore. Among the unemployed, the share of those who do not know anything about supplementary retirement solutions rises to 34%. These findings are consistent with OECD studies on financial literacy, which show that economic skills are unevenly distributed, with direct impacts on long-term decision-making. Retirement thus becomes a matter of equity—not just returns but access to knowledge.
One last figure deserves attention: 65% of Italians have never spoken to anyone about retirement, yet 81% consider supplementary solutions interesting. Even more, 70% would be interested in receiving personalized advice. The need is not latent. 34% prefer in-person advisory, and 26% prefer video tutorials with experts. Before investing, people want to understand. Before joining, they want to run simulations. Thaler would say that what is needed here is a better choice architecture. Sella SGR’s research adds a key element: trust. 61% of Italians say they are confident in their ability to achieve their medium- to long-term goals. The priority is to accumulate savings to ensure economic stability. The will to build the future is not lacking. What is needed is to turn that will into action. Because—as we wrote earlier in this longform—the future does not arrive suddenly. It is the result of decisions made today or postponed yet again. The hard decision is always ours to make.
Più consapevoli, meno attivi
Ecco che allora comprendere come gli italiani immaginano il proprio futuro è il primo passo per creare strumenti capaci di rispondere davvero alle loro esigenze. Da qui nasce la ricerca sulla previdenza sostenibile di Sella SGR, realizzata in collaborazione con Research Dogma per promuovere una cultura della pianificazione finanziaria di lungo periodo e che abbiamo già raccontato su Sella Insights. L’indagine, condotta su un campione di 2.000 persone tra i 25 e i 65 anni, fotografa un Paese consapevole dell’importanza di investire sul futuro previdenziale – un dato importante all’88% del campione – ma ancora poco attivo: meno del 10% conosce la propria situazione contributiva, mentre il 70% vorrebbe ricevere una consulenza personalizzata per pianificare il proprio futuro finanziario e previdenziale. Nonostante la consapevolezza, quasi la metà – precisamente il 43% dei rispondenti – ammette di non aver ancora intrapreso alcuna azione concreta per affrontare il tema. Una mancanza di iniziativa che si riflette anche nella scarsa conoscenza della propria posizione previdenziale, come ha scritto il Corriere della Sera. «La previdenza va ormai considerata come un aspetto che influenza e si integra profondamente nel tessuto sociale del nostro Paese e non solo una questione economica», afferma Mario Romano, Amministratore Delegato di Sella SGR. Il punto sta proprio qui: il divario tra consapevolezza e azione evidenzia la necessità di investire non solo nella consulenza, ma anche nella diffusione della conoscenza: per colmare la distanza serve maggiore educazione finanziaria e strumenti chiari e accessibili in grado di accompagnare le persone nella pianificazione del proprio futuro. «I dati della nostra ricerca, che ci restituiscono un’Italia ancora poco informata su questi argomenti, evidenziano l’urgenza di rafforzare la consapevolezza e favorire l’accesso a strumenti di pianificazione previdenziale in grado di offrire alle persone stabilità e tranquillità nel lungo termine. La maggior parte degli italiani sa, infatti, delle complessità future legate alla previdenza, ma spesso ignora la reale portata del problema o da dove iniziare ad affrontarlo, con la conseguenza di rimandare ogni decisione. La sfida di chi come noi opera nel settore consiste nel trasformare l’incertezza in conoscenza e quest’ultima in azione concreta, aiutando così le persone a pianificare il proprio futuro con strumenti concreti e sostenibili nel tempo», dice Romano. Così i dati vanno interpretati come scarto tra intenzione e comportamento. Il 72% del campione dichiara di non sapere o sapere solo vagamente quale sarà l’importo della propria pensione pubblica. Solo il 9% ha un’idea chiara. In altre parole: la maggioranza non ha mai effettuato una verifica puntuale della propria posizione contributiva. Ancora più significativo è il 43% che ammette di non aver intrapreso alcuna azione concreta per affrontare il tema. Sappiamo che il sistema è sotto pressione, ma rinviamo la pianificazione. È il bias dell’inerzia applicato alla previdenza.
Il valore della fiducia
Il caso del TFR è emblematico. Il 49% dei lavoratori dipendenti lo mantiene in azienda. Non sempre per scelta consapevole. Il 32% lo ritiene “più sicuro” lì, il 17% non si fida dei fondi pensione, il 18% non è consapevole della possibilità di investirlo. Qui non c’è solo diffidenza. C’è un problema di linguaggio e di accessibilità. Se quasi un quinto dei lavoratori non sa di poter destinare il TFR a un fondo pensione, significa che l’architettura informativa non è ancora efficace. Tra chi teme che la pensione pubblica non sarà sufficiente, il 58% non sa come colmare il divario. È il punto esatto in cui la consapevolezza si ferma e l’azione non parte. La ricerca evidenzia anche un differenziale di genere e di istruzione. La sfiducia rispetto alla sufficienza della pensione futura è più marcata tra le donne (si arriva al 60%) e tra chi ha un basso livello di istruzione, come ha scritto anche il Sole24Ore. Tra i non occupati, la quota di chi non conosce affatto le soluzioni di previdenza integrativa raggiunge il 34%. Le evidenze sono coerenti con gli studi dell’OECD sull’alfabetizzazione finanziaria, che mostrano come le competenze economiche siano distribuite in modo diseguale, con impatti diretti sulle scelte di lungo periodo. La previdenza diventa così un tema di equità. Non riguarda solo il rendimento, ma la capacità di accesso alla conoscenza. Un ultimo dato merita attenzione: il 65% degli italiani non ha mai parlato con nessuno di previdenza, eppure l’81% considera interessanti le soluzioni integrative. Di più, il 70% sarebbe interessato a ricevere consulenza personalizzata. Il bisogno non è latente. Il 34% preferisce consulenza in presenza e il 26% video tutorial con esperti. Prima di investire, le persone vogliono comprendere. Prima di aderire, vogliono simulare. Thaler direbbe che qui serve una migliore architettura delle scelte. Sempre la ricerca Sella SGR aggiunge un elemento chiave: la fiducia. Il 61% degli italiani si dichiara fiducioso di poter realizzare i propri progetti nel medio-lungo termine. La priorità è accumulare risparmi per garantirsi stabilità economica. Non manca la volontà di costruire il futuro. Serve tradurre la volontà in azione. Perché – lo abbiamo già scritto in questo longform – il futuro non arriva all’improvviso ma è il risultato di decisioni prese oggi o rimandate ancora una volta. Spetta sempre a noi l’ardua decisione.