A $224trn (£174.2trn) combined deficit could hit the six largest pension systems if action is not taken now to address longevity risk, the World Economic Forum (WEF) has warned.
The UK, US, Japan, Netherlands, Canada and Australia also need to improve access to their pension systems to prevent the looming crisis, the think tank added. If China and India were included in the calculation, the deficit would be $428trn by the middle of the century. The current gap is $67trn.
For the UK, the deficit is predicted to grow by 4% annually on average, from $8trn today to $32.8trn in 2050.
The white paper, We'll Live to 100 - How Can We Afford It?, which was prepared by the WEF and Mercer, also suggests the average gap per person will be $300,000.
The research looked at all forms of pension saving across defined benefit and defined contribution, including private, state, workplace and personal pensions.
WEF head of financial and infrastructure systems Michael Drexler said governments need to address the issue immediately.
"The anticipated increase in longevity and resulting ageing populations is the financial equivalent of climate change," he said "We must address it now or accept that its adverse consequences will haunt future generations, putting an impossible strain on our children and grandchildren."
Although the paper commends the UK for the rollout of automatic enrolment (AE), it said the UK should move now to increase the state pension age to at least 70 by 2050.
The recommendation, if followed through, would see the state pension age rise faster than recommended by John Cridland in his independent review published in March. The review said the state pension age should hit 68 by 2037, and then could be increased by one year per decade, potentially reaching 70 in 2057.
The report also recognised the move to align the state pension with life expectancy but said believing the UK had found a "beautiful balance between affordability and sustainability" would be "some sort of Panglossian fantasy".
Mercer president of health and wealth Jacques Goule said effort was needed on the part of both government and individuals.
"The retirement savings challenge is at crisis point and the time to act is now," he said. "There is no one ‘silver bullet' solution to solve the retirement gap. Individuals need to increase their personal savings and financial literacy, while the private sector and governments should provide programmes to support them."
The report recommended governments should ramp up efforts to improve financial literacy, starting in schools and focusing on vulnerable groups, and communicate more effectively how their income will be made up in retirement.
It also called for all countries to adopt a pensions dashboard, which the UK is expected to release in 2019.
Hymans Robertson head of longevity at Club Vita Steven Baxter said: "There needs to be realism about the crisis facing pensions in the UK. People need to be saving more for retirement and the state pension age needs to reflect the fact that people are living longer.
"The harsh reality is many of us will have to continue to work far longer than we'd have expected, far beyond the age at which previous generations retired."
