What is the average pension growth?

Gaz012012

I realise past performance doesn't equate to future gains......however.....whatbis the average growth observed?

I have been searching the web, and using different pension calculators with very different answers received.  Again appreciating it will depend upon investments.

What is either average increases per year and/or, what figure do you use?

Linton

Average pension growth is meaningless since people's pensions are different.  Some are very cautious with low growth, some are higher risk and hence with higher long term growth and some are just badly invested. Also returns vary greatly depending on the dates over which you measure.

For planning purposes I use inflation at 3% and investment growth of investments bought for that purpose at 4%, ie 1% above inflation.  In the long term I expect both to prove to be over-pessimistic but when planning this is better than over-optimism.

Albermarle

As above a very rough guide over a very long period could be in the region of 2% over inflation.
However even the medium term variability ( never mind short term) can be a lot.
In the last decade, a medium high risk portfolio, tilted towards the US, would have gained you not far off 10% pa, in a period of very low inflation.
So far this decade, the same medium high risk fund could have gained max 5% above inflation in 3.5 years.
A lower risk fund would be flat, so maybe 15% below inflation.

kinger101

I'm modelling at 2.5 percent above inflation, which is less conservative than some, but on the other side, my retirement strategy is presently weight more to leveraging tax advantages rather than capital growth.  So zero growth wouldn't be a disaster.