People are pessimistic about the future state of retirement,according to the first AEGON Retirement Survey.

Of the 9,000 respondents to the survey, in eight Europeancountries and the U.S., 71 percent who are still working said thatfuture generations will be worse off in retirement than currentretirees—reversing the long-established notion that each generationhelps pave the way for subsequent generations to enjoy a higherstandard of living.

More than two-thirds of respondents accept that they bearprincipal responsibility for their retirement security, but only 15percent are confident they are on the right course to achieve theretirement income they need.

Most respondents support increased taxes, reduced benefits (orboth) to ensure the viability of government sponsored pensionsystems. At the same time, nearly half of the respondents do notsupport raising the age of retirement, even as people are livinglonger, healthier lives. However, a clear majority of respondentsexpect to continue working in some form past traditional retirementage.

"People in general are enjoying longer, healthier lives, and yettheir readiness for a longer retirement is considerably less thanthat of previous generations of retirees. A concerted effort isneeded to reconsider traditional retirement models and providegreater flexibility for phased retirement,” said AEGON CEO AlexWynaendts. “If current pension systems are not adapted to the newrealities of longer life spans and declining government andemployer funding, the burdens placed on society will be a source ofeven greater economic and societal turmoil in the future. The goodnews is that people in general accept their responsibility increating the conditions that will provide for a secure andsatisfying retirement."

The survey found that more people plan to put off retirement.Fifty-four percent of the current generation of retirees wentstraight from work into full retirement, but only 30 percent of thecurrent working generation expects to be able to do the same.

The AEGON survey, developed in collaboration with theTransamerica Center for Retirement Studies – a nonprofit, privatefoundation in the United States dedicated to conducting researchand educating the public on retirement security trends – and CiceroConsulting, a leading public policy and communications consultingfirm providing independent market research to the financialservices sector, was conducted with the aim of understandingprevailing attitudes about retirement in the future and todetermine the levels of financial readiness that currently existamong today's working generation.