Client ServiceJune 6, 2016

Retirement Saving for More Than One

New research from Spectrem Group highlights a perplexing fact about financial altruism: Those with less saved are likelier to want to use their wealth to help others.

Reported by John Manganaro

More than one-third of Gen X investors say they want to use their wealth to help others, according to a new Spectrem Group Study, “Financial Behaviors and the Participant’s Mindset.”

Yet, the same study indicates that as age and household wealth increases, “attitudes tend to shift more towards growing and preserving wealth rather than using it to help others.” According to the report, slightly more than a quarter of households surveyed with investments of between $10,000 and $99,000 say they are interested in using their wealth to help others. But among respondents with more than $100,000 saved, just over one in five (22%) suggested that “using their money to help others is important to them.”

According to Spectrem Group, this effect extends beyond wanting to use wealth to help other individuals. The study shows that more affluent investors are also somewhat less interested in socially responsible investments, for example, although interest in this type of investing remains fairly low across the board.

Slightly more than half (54%) of investors with plan balances of less than $10,000 are concerned with the social responsibility of their investments, the report explains, while investors with plan balances of between $10,000 and $49,000 are right behind them, at 53%. Among investors with a plan balance of $50,000 to $99,000, less than half (46%) are concerned with the social responsibility of their investments. “The largest decrease between wealth segments occurs among individuals with a plan balance of more than $100,000,” Spectrem Group finds, “with only 36% interested in making socially responsible investments.”

The report goes on to highlight the “significant gender gap with regard to interest in socially responsible investing.” According to Spectrem Group, women in general are far more interested in socially responsible investing than men in general, with 56% saying they are interested, versus just one in three men saying the same.

Additional findings are available through www.spectrem.com.