Global retirement conditions have remained stable this year, following significant improvements in nearly all developed countries in last year’s index, according to Natixis Investment Managers’ 2024 Global Retirement Index (GRI).

The top performers in Natixis IM’s annual Global Retirement Index (GRI) have shown more consistent rankings across all sub-indices, indicating a stabilising global retirement outlook.

The list of countries in the top 10 of the index has remained unchanged for two consecutive years.

However, many individuals are feeling the pressure as they increasingly realize they must fund their retirement income on their own.

Switzerland has overtaken Norway for the top spot with an overall score of 82%, pushing Norway (81%) to second place.

Iceland holds its third-place ranking for the second year in a row, despite declines in most sub-indices. Notably, Iceland’s Health ranking dropped by seven places (from the top 10 to 11th) even after a slight score increase.

Norway experienced a decline in both the Material Wellbeing sub-index, falling from 1st to 6th, and in Finances and Retirement, dropping out of the top ten to 12th due to decreases in the tax pressure indicator, old-age dependency, and governance.

Luxembourg rose by four percentage points to first place in the Health sub-index, driven by an increase in its life expectancy score, overtaking Norway, which previously held the top spot.

Slovenia and Belgium each rose by four ranking points, with Belgium moving up to 15th from 19th and Slovenia just missing the top ten, rising to 11th from 15th.

Ireland claimed the number one spot in the Finances in Retirement sub-index, improving its score by one percentage point to 74% due to steadily reducing government debt.

Despite the generally positive outlook for global retirement security, results from the long-running Natixis Global Survey of Individual Investors show that the number of individuals who believe it is increasingly their responsibility to fund retirement on their own, rather than relying on public and private pensions, grew from 67% to 81% between 2015 and 2023.

Additionally, the number of individuals who believe it will take a miracle to achieve retirement security increased from 40% in 2021 to 45% in 2023.

Created in collaboration with Core Data Research, the GRI provides a global benchmark that incorporates a wide variety of factors essential for a healthy and secure retirement.

These include important financial factors as well as considerations such as access to and cost of healthcare, climate conditions, governance, and the general happiness of the population.

The GRI rankings are relative, based on an aggregate of mean scores from 0% to 100% for 18 performance measures in each of its four sub-indices – Finances in Retirement, Material Well-being, Health, and Quality of Life – which are combined to provide an overall picture of the environment for retirees.