The share of Indonesians with such a plan has reached 58 percent, according to the online survey involving 15,469 emerging affluent, affluent and high-net-worth individuals across 12 countries in June and July this year.

“In Indonesia, more so than any other market, an overwhelming number of the affluent plan to retire before 65,” Standard Chartered stated in its recently published report on the survey.

Millions across the globe have set new life goals for themselves during the COVID-19 pandemic, which has upended many people’s health and finances. These goals include not only a more comfortable retirement, but also improved health and setting aside more resources for the future of their children.

Those goals contrast starkly with figures from Statistics Indonesia (BPS) showing that around half of the country’s elderly, those aged 60 or older, were still working in 2020, either because they faced economic pressure or for self-actualization.

The average net worth of the survey respondents, across all countries, is US$407,000.

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Twenty-six-year-old Wella, who works for a private-sector company, has no retirement plans yet, let alone having defined an age threshold by which to quit work life, arguing that she enjoyed working.

“I have not set a limit for myself to stop working at a certain age,” Wella told The Jakarta Post on Nov. 3. “Maybe when I’m between 50 and 60 years old, I will slow down and not work full time.”

One-third of the elderly working population spend between 15 and 34 hours a week working, BPS data show. Another 25.64 percent of them still work full time at between 35 and 48 hours a week, and 20 percent even work 49 or more hours a week.

Wella added she had not begun to save or invest for her retirement, given that she was still focusing on saving for her emergency fund and to buy a house.

By contrast, only one in five people among the affluent are not currently saving or investing for retirement, according to Standard Chartered’s survey. This is the second-lowest proportion among the surveyed countries.

In Indonesia, around 67 percent of the respondents said they expected income from investment to finance their retirement, while 46 percent expected cash savings or deposits to serve that purpose, Standard Chartered reported.

On average, affluent respondents in the 12 surveyed countries started saving or investing for retirement at 32 years of age, according to the London-based bank.

Twenty-four-year-old Fiqih Prawira, an employee with state-owned publicly listed Bank Mandiri, said he did not have any retirement plans at the moment but expected to retire in his mid-50s. He added he was planning to start saving or investing for retirement in his mid-30s.

“Fortunately, my office offers a pension fund, which subtracts from my salary each month, so when I retire, I can take that, and the amount is fairly good,” Fiqih told the Post on Nov. 3.

Twenty-five-year-old Patria Rizky Ananda, knowledge and media manager at the Indonesian Forum for the Environment (Walhi) in Central Java, saves about 5 percent of her income for retirement every month.

Patria, who lives in Semarang in Central Java, said she had started saving for retirement because her job provided no pension funds like those enjoyed by some civil servants or private-sector employees.

Today, the vast majority of elderly in Indonesia rely on support from family members, BPS data show, indicating the burden on the so-called sandwich generation. Merely 6.45 percent of the elderly live on pensions and 0.58 percent on investments.

“Actually, my retirement plan is still far away, because my current job does not have an age cap,” Patria told the Post on Nov. 3. 

“But I will likely retire in my 60s,” she said, adding that she wanted to do gardening after retiring. “If I look at my parents who retired at 56 years, I think they can actually remain productive until they are older than 60.”

Mohammad Faisal, executive director at the Center for Reform on Economics (CORE) Indonesia, said those in the lower-middle class tended to retire later, because they could not meet all their needs in their productive days.

Moreover, the affluent were less likely to face the same drop in income as the lower-middle class, because they had prepared some investment, according to the economist.

“Before turning 65, the affluent have fulfilled their needs,” Faisal told the Post on Nov. 7. “They can accumulate assets in their productive age. So, clearly they will retire earlier to enjoy their old days.”