Gamification as an Educational Tool for Retirement Planning

Many individuals worldwide retire financially unprepared. The most evident factor for low retirement savings is due to a lack of retirement planning, especially from an early age. Financial literacy is a key element in navigating the current complex financial landscape, as it enables the individual to effectively manage personal finances and make sound financial decisions regarding earning, consuming, saving, investing, debt management, insurance, mitigating risk, identifying suitable financial sources when needed, and also ultimately saving enough for retirement. Financial education provided by employers is usually voluntary and generally designed as a one-size-fits-all solution. The current methods used to teach financial literacy are effective in accessing financial education, but whether they change financial behaviour that results in leaving individuals better prepared for retirement is not evident. Millennials thrive in a digital environment and prefer a trial-and-error approach when learning takes place. To make financial education more practical and appealing to millennials, programme developers should consider the use of gamified applications portraying real-life events where problems need to be solved and active engagement and immediate feedback, which can promote financial literacy and might change the saving behaviour of the younger generations. Gamification is explored as a potential educational tool that can be used in teaching retirement preparedness and financial literacy in the workplace.