Plan sponsors urged to look beyond finances as care, housing, and health drag down Canada’s longevity scores
Canadians recently scored 60 out of 100 on Manulife’s 2026 inaugural Longevity Preparedness Index, a result that Manulife says exposes gaps in how the country’s workforce is planning for the non-financial realities of aging.
“While Canadians are living longer, they’re not necessarily as prepared as we’d like to see them for those additional years,” said Fraser Wiswell, head of Canada Retirement at Manulife Wealth & Asset Management in Toronto. “What stood out to me as I read the report is that the preparedness gaps are in areas that we would think people would be thinking about, such as care, home, and health,” Wiswell said.
Where Canadians fall short on aging
Developed in partnership with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s AgeLab, the index evaluates preparedness across eight dimensions, each scored out of 100, with the overall result representing the average. Community scored highest at 75, followed by social connection at 69 and finance at 66. Daily activities and life transitions each came in at 60 – right at the national average.
The three lowest-scoring dimensions were health at 55, home at 53, and care at 40, the last of which trailed every other category by a wide margin.
Health and finances ranked as the top priorities for Canadians today, cited by 67 per cent and 66 per cent of respondents, respectively.
But care needs told a different story. Only 11 per cent flagged future caregiving as a current priority, but 26 per cent said they expected it to matter later in life – a gap that suggests Canadians recognize the issue is coming but have yet to act on it.
According to Wiswell, the eight categories draw on research from MIT AgeLab into the conditions required for a healthy, sustained later life, and the Canadian results follow a pattern Manulife has already observed south of the border: financial preparedness outpaces everything else, while care, housing, and health lag behind. Wiswell emphasized the weakest scores land where plan sponsors might least expect them.
“From a Manulife perspective, we look at this and we think that health, wealth, and longevity are so closely connected. If we're going to help people have a better retirement, we need to support all areas, and we've got work to do,” Wiswell said.
Health is the sharpest example from Manulife’s report. While respondents ranked it among the most important dimensions, their scores remained low. Wiswell sees it as a pattern that mirrors everyday behaviour.
“People know they need to eat well. People know they need to work out, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re taking care of it all the time,” he said. “It’s hard to think about your own health deteriorating and what’s going to be required at that point. It’s a classic scenario where it’s a lot easier to know it’s important than it is to do something about it.”
While plan design matters, Wiswell acknowledged that contribution levels alone won’t close the preparedness gaps the index identified.
“It comes down to providing broader education around more than just the financials and access to advice and financial planning to help people understand the breadth of what it means to live and age well,” he said.
Does access to advice move the needle?
Additional data from Manulife’s index backs that up. Respondents who work with a financial professional scored 63 on the index, compared with 57 for those who do not. Wiswell said the gap confirms what the industry has long suspected about the value of advice, but he argues the next step is expanding what that advice covers, noting that while financial planning and health are a starting point, he emphasized the full picture includes all eight domains the index measures.
To that end, he believes the problem starts with how narrowly Canadians define retirement planning, particularly as most people treat it as a financial exercise and stop there. Care needs, for instance, tend to register only when a parent or relative requires support – not as something individuals plan for themselves.
Meanwhile, housing follows a similar pattern as he noted people talk about aging in place without considering the renovations or accessibility modifications that would make it possible. The result is that the costs of care and home adaptation sit outside the financial calculation entirely, invisible until the moment they become unavoidable.
An indicator for sponsors to address longevity
For employers, the index adds weight to a growing argument that longevity is the key to retirement planning, not just in terms of savings adequacy but across every dimension of an employee’s future. Wiswell argues employers are positioned to act because they already influence so many of the relevant factors – retirement savings, group health benefits, mental health supports, and workplace social connection among them.
“The ones that take a more holistic approach to employee well-being will be better positioned to help their employees for the longer, healthier, and better life,” he said.
The report also found that personal experience – watching a parent need long-term care or navigating a sudden health event – is often what jolts Canadians into action. Wiswell said waiting for that trigger is exactly what the index is designed to challenge.
“We feel if we can create that awareness without going through that life transition, we can help people get prepared for what’s ahead,” said Wiswell.
The Manulife Longevity Institute, launched in late 2025, is intended to anchor that effort. The Canadian index is one of its first major research outputs, and Wiswell confirmed it will be conducted on a regular basis to track trends over time.
Whether it ultimately shifts behaviour at the plan design level where defined contribution innovation is already accelerating will depend on how seriously plan sponsors treat the non-financial dimensions the index has surfaced.
“It only takes one of those pieces to fall down before everything gets impacted,” said Wiswell.
