Alarming number of Danes don’t save for retirement

Many people only have a deposit account

Lucie Rychla

A survey by TNS Gallup conducted for Nordea Bank shows that 600,000 Danes aged 18 to 65 do not save money for retirement, corresponding to 17 percent of the working-age population.

Three out of 10 Danes only have a deposit account in a bank and fewer people invest in private pension funds than in 2009.

Nordic record 
According to Ann Lehmann Erichsen, Nordea’s consumer economist, the fact that almost every fifth adult Dane does not put aside money for retirement is alarming.

“It is a Nordic record, and the kind of record we don’t need to collect,” Erichsen stated.

“In Norway, the figure was 10 percent and in Sweden it was five. So, this is a challenge for the big guys to reverse the trend.”

Men, the young and the poorer
The data shows that particular groups are more guilty than others of not saving up for retirement: it is more men than women, younger people than older, and those with lower salaries than higher wages.

Of those who do save up, only 1.8 million invest in more long-term solutions such as private pension funds and securities.

“More people save up in a way that makes them more financially vulnerable, few of them spread their risks and they keep all of their eggs in one basket,” Erichsen noted.

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