Study: Financial shocks, not procrastination, drive retirement regret

Procrastination doesn't cause retirement regret

A new study finds that procrastination is not a meaningful predictor of whether older adults wish they had saved more for retirement. The dominant predictor is exposure to negative financial shocks, like job loss or medical crises.

The working paper from researchers Susann Rohwedder, Michael Hurd, and Axel Börsch-Supan surveyed thousands of people aged 60–74 in the United States and Singapore. It directly challenges the behavioral economics narrative that under-saving is primarily a self-control problem.

Economic shocks, not poor discipline

The authors tested 12 separate psychometric measures of procrastination and self-control. The prediction was that people who scored high would be more likely to express saving regret.

That link was weak to nonexistent. Where statistically significant associations did appear, they frequently ran in the opposite direction. In Singapore, people who reported never putting off difficult tasks were more likely to have saving regret.

The relationship with economic shocks was immediate and powerful. In the U.S., 69 percent of respondents reported at least one negative financial shock, compared to 46 percent in Singapore. Among Americans who experienced a shock, 61 percent expressed saving regret, versus 42 percent of those who didn't.

How the US and Singapore diverge

The study reveals a stark difference in how the two countries handle financial risk. Four of the five most common negative shocks are labor-market related, and the U.S. leads in every category.

• Serious unemployment: 18% of Americans reported a damaging spell vs. 11% in Singapore.
• Health limiting work: 20% of Americans vs. 14% of Singaporeans.
• Earnings falling short: 16% of Americans vs. 12% of Singaporeans.
• Forced early retirement: 13% of Americans vs. 8% of Singaporeans.

As the number of shocks accumulates, regret in the U.S. climbs steadily, reaching 76 percent among those with five or more. In Singapore, regret hovers around 50 percent regardless of shock count.

Institutional design as a buffer

Singapore’s system creates mandatory buffers against shocks. Its Central Provident Fund mandates that roughly 37 percent of earnings flow into individual accounts for retirement, housing, and health care.

These are compulsory, split into dedicated accounts. When a shock hits, there is a specific pool of money to absorb it. The system also focuses on preventing job loss, with laws requiring employers to offer re-employment to older workers.

The U.S. system offers far weaker protection. In 2024, only 27 percent of jobless workers received unemployment benefits. A job loss can also mean losing employer-tied health insurance, creating a compounding crisis.

The health care comparison is telling. While large medical expenses occur at similar rates (~10-11%), the consequence is a 24-percentage-point increase in saving regret in the U.S., versus just a 10-point increase in Singapore.

Reframing the problem

The paper reframes under-saving not as a failure of willpower but as a failure of risk management. The policy implication is that strengthening social insurance against catastrophic risks would do more to reduce regret than tweaking savings "nudges."

The authors point to a key skill that did predict lower regret: probability numeracy. This is the ability to reason about uncertainty and likelihood.

Individuals who answered all probability questions correctly had saving regret rates 14 percentage points lower in the U.S. and 19 points lower in Singapore. Conventional financial literacy showed no consistent protective relationship.

The core finding is that when you compare people who weren’t hit by shocks, Americans and Singaporeans look almost identical in their saving satisfaction. The gap opens because Americans face more shocks and have weaker institutional buffers against them.