South Africa’s population aged 60 and older has nearly doubled in just over two decades, climbing from 3.6 million in 2002 to 6.6 million in 2025, according to Statistics South Africa’s latest healthy ageing report. Their share of the total population has risen from 7.7% to 10.5%. The financial frameworks meant to support that growing cohort have not kept pace.
The scale of the preparedness gap is stark. The 10X Retirement Reality Report finds that only 6% of South Africans are on track to retire comfortably. Many lack a formal retirement plan entirely. Others doubt whether their existing arrangements will hold. The gap between demographic reality and financial readiness has become impossible to ignore.
Barry Kaganson, CEO of Auria Senior Living, has identified a fundamental problem at the heart of the industry: outdated assumptions about how long retirement actually lasts. The conventional model assumes people will need their savings for 12 to 15 years after leaving the workforce. That calculation no longer reflects lived reality. “People are reaching their later years in better health than any generation before them. That is a triumph,” Kaganson observes. “But our retirement planning has not caught up with the fact that people are living longer.”
The practical consequences are severe. Someone retiring at 65 could reasonably expect to live another 30 or 35 years, yet most retirement plans are built on a much shorter timeframe. “A plan built for 15 years and stretched across 30 fails at the worst possible moment, when earning capacity is gone and options have collapsed,” Kaganson warns. This is not merely a matter of running out of money. It represents a structural failure in how the industry approaches retirement security. The marketing materials that populate the sector often depict silver-haired couples on golf courses at 60, a vision that bears little resemblance to the financial realities most South Africans will face.
By contrast, the costs associated with extended longevity extend well beyond basic living expenses. Long-term care, frail care, and conditions such as dementia can become substantial financial burdens during the later stages of life. Yet these expenses are frequently treated as unexpected shocks rather than predictable components of a retirement plan. “A plan that budgets for holidays and hobbies but skips frail care has misread where the real costs of a long life sit,” Kaganson explains. Incorporating these costs from the outset, rather than discovering them after retirement has begun, is essential to building sustainable financial security.
The role of senior living models in addressing this challenge is receiving increasing attention. Kaganson points to the growth of senior living investment internationally as evidence of shifting market dynamics. Life Right continuing care communities, which offer residents the lifelong legal right to occupy a home while the operator retains ownership and maintenance responsibility, represent one approach to providing both financial predictability and comprehensive support throughout later life. Such models can help address some of the costs and risks associated with extended ageing while offering residents greater certainty about their long-term housing and care needs.
The most practical advice Kaganson offers is also the most urgent: South Africans should begin retirement planning as early as possible. Delaying until retirement approaches leaves individuals with few options to address financial shortfalls. “Waiting until the shortfall is undeniable converts a planning exercise into a crisis, and crises at 75 offer very few exits,” he states. His specific recommendation is for South Africans to test whether their current retirement plan could realistically sustain them for 30 years or more. Those whose plans withstand that scrutiny occupy a fortunate minority.
For the remainder, the priority is acquiring what longevity planning values most: time to take corrective action while options remain available. Whether the retirement planning industry will revise its foundational assumptions quickly enough to match that demographic reality is the question that will define financial security for millions of South Africans in the decades ahead. Further analysis is available at https://www.georgeherald.com/News/Article/Business/living-longer-saving-too-little-sa-s-retirement-dilemma-202608280102.