Retirement protection on one's own: Retirement readiness and worries among middle-income earners in Hong Kong

Abstract

Even as the world increasingly tends towards pension privatization, Hong Kong’s privatized pension system remains an extreme example. In the former British colony, retirement protection depends heavily on personal savings and investments, a dependency that the Mandatory Provident Fund (MPF) scheme further institutionalized beginning in 2000. Even so, Hong Kong’s government continues to maintain a means-tested zero pillar to assist its population of disadvantaged older adults. Against that background, in our exploratory study we surveyed middle-income earners 50–59 years old who rely on private and MPF-accrued savings for retirement in order to characterize their retirement readiness and anxiety about retirement risks. In the process, we also critically examined the individualization of retirement protection in order to better understand the biopolitics of older adults’ transitions into retirement. The results suggest that because individuals in Hong Kong are responsible for financial planning to protect their own retirement, they have to both proactively prepare for retirement and work as long as possible to manage retirement risks. Such a paradox of biopolitics requires a critical rethinking of individualized and financialized retirement protection.