Gen Z Now Targets Retirement at Age 54, Earliest of Any Generation
2026-06-08
Retirement research shows Gen Z now expects to retire earlier than any generation surveyed, with an average target age of 54 compared with 63 for the general population.
Research from retirement services firm Empower found Gen Z respondents expect to retire at an average age of 54, notably earlier than Millennials (60), Gen X (66), or Baby Boomers (71). The overall average expected retirement age across all generations surveyed sits at 63.
The same research found that a plurality of Americans — roughly 4 in 10 — define financial happiness at least partly in terms of retiring by a specific age, though the research also noted that expected retirement ages across generations have been drifting later compared with expectations reported a year earlier.
Separately, the same body of research found that a majority of Americans — 58% — remain open to some form of post-retirement employment, with the largest share citing personal fulfillment, rather than financial necessity, as the primary reason for continuing to work in some capacity after reaching financial independence.
This lines up closely with the 'financial independence without retiring' framework covered in this site's article library: reaching a number is not the same as being required to stop working, and increasingly, younger generations appear to be planning for the former without assuming the latter.
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