One in 4 Millennial US Workers Expects To Live 30 or More Years in Retirement

A person’s expected retirement duration depends largely on how long they expect to live, and millennials are the generation in the U.S. that thinks they will live the longest.

A quarter of U.S. millennial workers, those born between 1981 and 1996, say they expect to live 30 years or more in retirement, and nearly 40% anticipate living to be 90 or older. That is according to a study released Monday from the TIAA Institute and the Global Financial Literacy Excellence Center.

The study shows that 20 years of retirement is the median expected retirement length among all current workers in the U.S. Half of respondents across generations said they expect to live for 20 years or more in retirement, with just 15% saying they expect to be retired fewer than 10 years.

Financial advisors say it is important to have a general sense of how long you will live when saving for retirement. If millennials expect their golden years to last 30 or more years, they will need to have the savings to carry them through. Otherwise, they risk outliving their savings.

About three-quarters of respondents to a March Nationwide survey said they fear running out of money before running out of time.

Women Foresee a Longer Retirement

Women tend to expect longer retirements than men, as 54% of female workers surveyed said they expect to live in retirement at least 20 years, compared with 48% of men.

Respondents considered personal health, family history, and general knowledge on the average lifespan in the U.S. for their answers, according to the study. However, the report also found that many people don’t actually know what age the average American lives. (Data from the National Center for Health Statistics points to the average life expectancy in the U.S. being about 78.)