Retirement: Prioritize Yourself Before Passing on Wealth

A More Personal Approach to Retirement

The 2025 study, expanded to include a representative sample of the French population—both working individuals and retirees—highlights a mismatch between family expectations and economic realities. While the 2024 Yomoni surveys focused on retirees, this new edition reveals a convergence: across all generations, retirement is increasingly viewed as a second life rather than just a hiatus.
For 69% of respondents, retirement is synonymous with personal projects, travel, and hobbies. Only 13% associate it with passing on wealth or family support. « This cultural shift reflects a profound change: retirement becomes a period of autonomy and self-fulfillment, rather than an obligation to family legacy, » comments Yomoni.
This move toward individualization is also driven by growing distrust in the collective system. Uncertainties about the sustainability of the pay-as-you-go pension system and rising costs of living are prompting working individuals to think in terms of personal retirement, rather than generational solidarity.

The Era of Passive Income

This aspiration for autonomy is coupled with a financial demand: 71% of the French aim for a « better » retirement than their working life, thanks to passive income (investments, rent, dividends). Their goal is no longer merely to maintain their standard of living, but to improve it. The ideal budget for « living comfortably » is between 1,500 and 2,000 euros per month for 39% of respondents, and between 2,000 and 3,000 euros for 36%. Only 5% are willing to accept a significant drop in income.
This desire for comfort explains the success of long-term investments: life insurance, rental property, retirement savings plans (PER), and diversified portfolios with managed accounts. « Our clients are looking for visibility and returns over the long term. They want to enjoy life, but not at the expense of their security, » notes a spokesperson from Yomoni.
In practice, wealth preparation begins earlier. Those aged 30 to 45 adopt an approach that combines regular monthly savings, automated stock market investing, and cautious rental property investment, aimed at generating deferred income.

Transmission remains present but secondary

If retirement is becoming more individualized, it is not becoming completely isolated. The desire to pass on wealth remains, but it turns into a secondary effect rather than a central objective. Nearly 29% of respondents express a willingness to leave an inheritance to their children, compared to 26% in 2024. This modest increase reflects a cultural shift: inheritance is more often planned through anticipation (donations, life insurance, beneficiary clauses) rather than by sacrificing one's lifestyle.
The relationship with money is thus becoming more rational and less sacrificial. Current generations prioritize management and planning over spontaneous generosity. The focus is not just on passing wealth down but on doing so without self-deprivation.
In this context, the role of wealth management advisors is evolving: to support the generation that wants to enjoy their retirement while organizing their estate, without pitting one against the other.
In reality, the shift observed by Yomoni is not about growing selfishness but about achieving financial maturity. The modern saver no longer sees pleasure and prudence as opposites: they seek to balance personal freedom with financial security, even if it means revising the traditional rules of inheritance.
The model of a sacrificial retirement, serving solely for the benefit of future generations, seems outdated. What is taking hold now is a model of a clear-sighted, autonomous, and deliberate retirement, where the priority is no longer to leave a material inheritance but a life capital well spent.