There is also the fact that we know the French health care system, the social aids you get if you loose your job, and your family will all come into play for some category of problems.
And there is the gamble for more comfort vs responsibility. My generation really don't want to take any kind of responsibility for anything, including society, the planet and their own life.
But even if you consider that:
- saving 10% of my income will not, in any way, let me live through my retirements. Not at half of my current life style anyway. And I do earn more money that most people.
- those are people in a very comfortable situation. Now take people with children, a loan and a standard job, and you have a much less simple picture.
- most people have been told the story that the retirement system will work, or that we will make it work. Beside, they don't thing 30 years ahead for anything.
- a lot of people won't make rational choices in their life. Taking a loan they should not, making a child they can't afford, getting married with the wrong person... Expecting people to save is already at another level of planning. We failed at educating people, but we also told them it was ok to do what they were doing.
- we have a huge value scale issue here. frugality, quality, solidarity... Those are not the thing that society promotes. Solving the retirement problem is not just an economical issue. When banks are bailed out, medias scream "money and consumption" and Trump rules the most powerful country in the world, convincing somebody to not go for take out is quite hard.
- fixing and cookie are getting a lost art.
- things do cost way more. 10% is a lot for some people.