Better communication to support individuals’ retirement savings decisions

Abstract

Retirement savings decisions significantly impact financial outcomes and well-being in retirement. People often find them complex and difficult.The aim of this thesis is to investigate how personalized message-based nudges influence decisions of retirement plan participants, also known as superannuation fund members in Australia, the context of our studies. We explore this by testing three types of messages about a retirement income adequacy target for a comfortable retirement through a combination of observational and experimental studies. The messages targeted different members based on their personalized retirement income projections. They either congratulated recipients for being on track to reach the target or recommended contributing a small amount weekly, typically less than $20 or exactly $20, to meet or get closer to their retirement goals.