2022 Retirement Reimagined Study

Empowered by early savings, Millennials are reshaping what it means to retire, with an emphasis on flexibility and new experiences.

Key findings

Although a quarter of Millennials still have outstanding student debt, they're saving for retirement nearly a full decade earlier than previous generations.
Travel will continue to be a top priority for the next generation in retirement, with Millennials less likely to own a permanent home than Boomers.
Flexibility and a desire for new experiences will lead Millennials and Gen X away from stereotypical and sedentary retirement pursuits.
With less of a focus on a specific nest egg amount, Millennials and Gen X will think of savings and investing as a path to more flexibility and freedom.

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About the survey

The first of its kind, Schwab’s Retirement Reimagined Study uses advanced predictive modeling techniques to forecast key differences in how Millennials, Gen X and Boomers will approach saving for and living in retirement.

Conducted a 19-minute, 5,000 person, nationally representative quantitative study, and analyzed results in combination with anonymized Schwab investor data and relevant 3^rd party economic and demographic research to form a holistic retirement-related dataset. With this dataset in place, a wide range of advanced modeling techniques were used to determine both current and future values across generations, projecting Millennials’ future retirement. Resulting from these efforts is a generational segmentation (Millennials, Gen X and Boomers) of the current drivers of happiness and future values in retirement in addition to four distinct future Millennial retirement personas.

Media Contact: Hibah Shariff