Saving for retirement is a ‘fragile and divided’ topic

As Social Security benefits face an increasingly uncertain future and living expenses for seniors continue to rise, a larger share of American workers and employers believe that “retirement confidence is fragile and divided.”

That’s the key takeaway from the 10th annual iteration of BlackRock’s Read on Retirement survey, released last week. BlackRock — the world’s largest asset manager — surveyed 1,300 employees with workplace retirement plans, along with 300 retirees and 459 plan sponsors to compile the report. Component surveys were conducted by Escalent from Feb. 2 to May 19, 2025.

The employees questioned for the survey had at least $5,000 in assets in their current account. Gen X comprised 36% of the employee respondents, followed by millennials (32%), baby boomers (16%) and Gen Z (16%). Retiree respondents have been out of the workforce for at least 10 years, with roughly half having access to a defined benefit or pension plan for retirement income.

According to BlackRock, optimism about retirement is rising among the current workforce as 64% of this year’s respondents expressed confidence. But that data point is contradicted by the record-low 38% of employers that say at least 60% of their employees are on track for retirement.

“Over the past decade, long-term market growth and enhancements to the retirement system have boosted saver confidence,” the report noted. “In fact, savers today are more confident than their generational peers were 10 years ago. Still concerns, from plan sponsors and a persistent gender gap highlight areas of tension.”

BlackRock highlighted some key policy shifts since the 1990s aimed at creating more retirement savings. These include the Pension Protection Act of 2006, which “legitimized default investment options and nudged participants into saving behaviors that mimic the discipline of DB (defined benefit plans). Target-date funds have been “widely adopted” as default investment options since 2010, while the SECURE Act of 2019 included multiple provisions to encourage savings.

Gen Z appears much more confident about their retirement prospects than millennials did nearly a decade ago. Three-quarters of Gen Z respondents expressed optimism in this year’s survey, compared to 59% of millennials who were recent entries to the workforce in 2016.

Confidence during “prime earning years” around age 35 is also up from 2016 as 70% of today’s millennials say they’re optimistic, compared to 43% of Gen X respondents at the same age in 2016.

Confidence among older workers, however, hasn’t budged in the past decade as 54% of Gen Xers around age 45 say they’re prepared — unchanged from the 54% share of boomers at the same age in 2016.

“We’ve made great progress in building more confident savers — especially younger participants who are outpacing their peers thanks to plan enhancements. But we must continue helping those closest to retirement feel more secure,” BlackRock noted.

Along with the confidence gap between younger and older workers, a gulf also exists between men and women. The survey found that while confidence among both genders has grown at the same pace over the past decade, men continue to have a higher level of confidence about retirement preparedness than women (72% versus 56%).

Furthermore, 84% of men say they’re confident they’ll have enough saved to last through retirement while only 73% of women say the same.

“The gender gap persists, even with the strong strides women have made over the past decade,” BlackRock explained. “Still, more work must be done to address the heightened longevity concerns women face.”

While employers express less confidence than workers on the subject of retirement readiness, the survey indicated that they’re listening to employee needs. This is the first year that 100% of employer respondents said they “feel responsible for helping participants generate and manage income, especially in today’s economic climate.”

To help their workers close the savings gap, 86% of retirement plan sponsors say that “an actively managed target date fund could generate incremental returns for participants.” Similar shares of employers say that actively managed plans can “consistently outperform the market” and that “an actively managed target data fund could reduce the impact of volatility for participants.”