How 'Retirement Ready' is India | 1 Finance Magazine Survey

Executive summary

When Indians plan for retirement, they imagine family time, rest, and travel — not financial independence. This study tests how far that aspiration is matched by actual preparation. Between January and November 2025, 1 Finance surveyed 1,218 respondents across 20+ Indian cities, predominantly aged 40 to 60, through telephonic and in-person interviews. Each respondent was assessed across current savings, target corpus, healthcare planning, advisory use, fallback strategies, and estate readiness. The sample skews metro (71.3%) and salaried (83.7%), so findings reflect the urban middle and upper-middle class rather than the country at large.

Key findings

• Three in four respondents (75.5%) do not have a detailed retirement plan, yet 61.4% of those without one still feel confident about retiring comfortably. The aspiration is personal; the planning gap is structural.
• The median respondent has saved ₹28 lakh against a target of ₹1 crore, a 3.6x gap that widens to 8x at the 75th percentile. Those with larger ambitions face proportionally wider shortfalls.
• 82% cite healthcare as the most important retirement concern, yet most address it through general savings rather than dedicated cover, even as medical inflation runs at 12–14% annually, two to three times general inflation.
• 84.8% do not have a will, and 78.2% have never had a detailed inheritance discussion. Estate planning is the weakest link, with inheritance treated as a passive entitlement rather than an active financial decision.

Takeaway

For households, retirement readiness cannot be judged by savings balance alone. The more useful question is whether the corpus will actually last, given inflation, healthcare costs, and a likely 25 to 30-year retirement rather than 15 to 20. For advisors, the conversation that begins with "at what age does your money run out?" will do more than any product pitch. For policymakers and the industry, voluntary planning is too incomplete to rely on; stronger default annuity layers, simpler NPS onboarding, and easier estate planning will matter more than new products.