Life expectancy for Singapore's resident population has been trending higher
With advances in technology and medical science, you’ll likely live longer. And a longer lifespan means your investments must support you for longer to maintain a comfortable lifestyle post-retirement.
According to data from the Singapore Department of Statistics, life expectancy for the local resident population has been trending higher since the 1990s, with the exception of 2021-22 due to higher mortality rates as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Babies born in 2025 are expected to live to 84, up from 78 at the turn of the century1.
Average life expectancy is a mid-point, not an end-point
While the average life expectancy for Singapore's resident population continues to increase, this is merely a mid-point, not an end-point. Digging deeper, we find that in Singapore, at least one member of a 65-year-old couple has a 62.1% chance of living to age 90 or beyond and a 7.9% chance of reaching 100 years or more3.
This underscores the need to plan for the probability of living much longer than expected, with more years in retirement.
Don’t let longevity become a financial concern
Living longer would affect key decisions such as when to retire, how to make the most of your time, how to invest and what kind of long-term care you may want or need as you age.
If you are in good health at 65 and have a family history of longevity, your retirement plan should conservatively account for 30 or more years of living expenses4.
This means your investments need to keep growing long after you stop working, presenting income while also keeping pace with inflation. This can help manage the risk of you outliving your financial resources.
So, start early
It’s best to start planning for retirement, well before you reach the statutory retirement age. Retirement planning is a long-term process that evolves over time.
Social security programmes like Singapore’s Central Provident Fund (CPF) provide a strong foundation for building your retirement savings. However, proactively supplementing these programmes with your own savings and investments can help maintain the lifestyle you want in retirement.
Our retirement savings checkpoint presents a useful guidepost or gauge to check if you are adequately saving towards maintaining your current lifestyle in retirement, subject to certain assumptions5.
Ultimately, the earlier you start saving and investing for retirement, the more you can benefit from the power of compounding.