There is this cultural belief in Africa that having children is an investment. The notion is that when you have many children, the resources from all the children will be pooled to take care of their parent’s financial responsibilities in old age.
Also, successful children are regarded as safety nets for other struggling siblings and other family members.
As such, many millennials are always encouraged by their parents and other elderly relatives to have many children, not considering their financial struggles or the state of the economy.
Many young Nigerians who are gainfully employed have had to channel a huge chunk of their monthly income to paying black taxes to their parents, sibling and other close relatives.
Black taxes, according to Urban Dictionary, is the extra money that black professionals are expected to give every month to support their less fortunate family and extended families.
This practice of ‘sending money home’ becomes a clog in their wheels of progress, depriving them of the opportunity to save towards their career growth, dream homes, cars and other important life aspirations.
READ ALSO: The Importance Of Having A Pension Plan For Life After Service
Failure to take on the financial obligations of your parents in their old age will lead to people tagging you as a ‘ungrateful child’ or ‘selfish child’ who is not appreciative of the sacrifices your parents made while growing up.
This monthly financial obligation often cut short the career aspirations of young people; delay them from starting their own family early in life and makes it difficult to create generational wealth.
This trend is common in Africa because some of our parents who were self-employed have no source of steady income at their old age or after retirement.
While many Americans in their old age live on pension benefits and wealth they have acquired, which is then passed on to their children, many young Africans are only able to inherit debt or use their income to pay a family member’s rent or help support an aging parent’s retirement.
This cycle of overdependence by family and friends can be broken with a simple pension scheme that allows artisans, freelancers,
Self-employed people working in the informal sector or unstructured workplace have been given an opportunity to live a comfortable life free from financial worries in old age with the micro pension scheme.
The National Pension Commission (PENCOM) introduced the Micro Pension scheme specifically to cater to the needs of these set of people.
The Micropension scheme was designed to cater to the retirement needs of the self-employed and persons working in organisations with less than three employees.
Micro Pensions is specifically designed for the individuals in the informal sectors, whose income is low and irregular so that they can also participate and benefit from the scheme towards a blissful retirement.
To learn more about the micropension scheme, opportunities in the pension transfer window and why pension should be embraced by all ages, participate in BizWatch Nigeria’s third edition of its webinar series themed: Reimagining Retirement For Secured Future.
Date: Wednesday, September 29, 2021
Time: 11 am
Register here to join the conversation.
