Pensions time bomb: Employee attitudes to auto-enrolment and pensions

Each country around the world is facing a crisis of a rapidly aging population, the World Economic forum White Paper from May 2017 has identified that there will be over 600 million retirees in China and India by 2050. The retirement funding gap across all major economies is increasing each year. In response to this the Irish Government are reviewing the pensions systems for Ireland with the primary aim of increasing pension coverage among the private sector to ensure its citizens have adequate financial resources in place when they retire. The literature review examines the themes around auto enrolment and pensions and examines the Irish Pension system through the academic literature. The research focused on a qualitative approach for data collection and examines the interview responses from employees in the private sector. The dissertation is exploratory in nature. The researcher has adapted an inductive approach based on the findings of semi structured interviews with employees working in the private sector with a view to exploring their attitudes to auto enrolment and pensions with the introduction of the Government initiative being introduced in 2022. Specifically the participants interviewed were asked about their attitudes to elements involved in the scheme design including level of contributions, attitude to risk and their levels of financial knowledge