Retirement pension : a comparison between Swedish farmer and non-farmer business owners

Abstract: The Swedish retirement system is hard to understand. The decisions about retirement must be applied on an individual basis. Business owners are not protected in the same way as employees. Employees usually get national retirement and occupational pension automatically from their employer. Business owners have to make their own decision to plan for their retirement savings. This study concerns the retirement planning of Swedish small business owners, comparing farmer and non-farmer business owners. It explains possible differences in their decision-making as concerns retirement pension. The decision-making process is the basis of this study. The process includes individual preferences, psychological processes and environmental influences. The aim of this study is to provide theoretical explanations to possible differences between Swedish farmer and non-farmer business owners’ decision-making as concerns retirement pension. The investigation provides knowledge that makes it possible to see a pattern of behavior in decision-making about business owners’ retirement pension. This study needs quantifiable data. A web-based questionnaire was sent by e-mail to 27,101 members of Småföretagarnas Riksförbund (The Federation of Swedish Small Businesses). To fulfil the aim of this study the data was compared to a previous study on Swedish farmer business owners. One of the most common and flexible techniques for statistical hypothesis testing is chi-square, which is used in this study to see if there is a correlation between two variables. In this study the maximum allowable level of significance 0.05 was used. The results from the hypothesis testing show that non-farmer business owners think it is more important to save for their retirement than farmer business owners. Another observation is that farmer business owners will retire later than non-farmer business owners. The conclusion of the study is that non-farmer business owners are more prone to actively plan for their retirement savings the more complex the retirement scheme is. Both non-farmers and farmers are more willing to search for information about retirement planning if they are interested in the topic and if they already have some knowledge about the topic. Non-farmer business owners have a higher level of education than farmers. The higher level of education does not increase the knowledge about retirement savings. Another conclusion is that farmer business owners retire later than non-farmer business owners. Non-farmer business owners think it is more important to save for their retirement than farmer business owners. Family and friends do not influence how actively non-farmer nor farmer business owners plan for their retirement. Non-farmers find retirement planning more important than farmers.