‘I Might not Live That Long!’ A Study of Young Women's Pension Planning in the UK

Abstract

There has been considerable concern about levels of pension saving especially given increases in longevity and rising pension deficits. In particular, the prospects of many future female pensioners have been questioned. As pensions are determined by contributions throughout the life course it is imperative to comprehend the attitudes, knowledge, expectations and savings habits of people from an early age to explore why under-saving occurs. This is particularly pertinent given recent governments' emphasis on individual responsibility for financial provision in retirement. However, there is little research which focuses specifically on young women's attitudes or planning towards pensions despite considerable concern about the future of women's pensions. This article considers young women's (18-30) attitudes towards pensions and whether they differ according to socioeconomic status by using interviews with 15 women (five in routine and manual occupations, five intermediate, five professional and managerial) about how knowledge and choice, trust, responsibility, risk and uncertainty impact on their pension decisions. It is evident that the ability and willingness of people to contribute to a pension depends, among other things, on the pension offered by employers, the pension requirements in place and immediate financial needs. Therefore this article shows that pension policy needs to take into account women's employment histories, which are often fragmented and diverse, when considering young women's attitudes towards pension saving.

Gender and active ageing in Europe

“…These reforms may create new income risks in retirement as well as ''perpetuate and even deepen social inequalities in terms of income, social security and quality of life in old age'' (Naegele and Walker 2007, p. 164). This is of particular concern because male work patterns are often the reference point for the calculation of pension entitlements, overlooking gender differences in work and care (Foster 2012a;Ginn 2003;Marin and Zólyomi 2010). Eur J Ageing (2013) 10:3-10 5 Active labour market policies and flexible employment…”

Pensjonssystemets bærekraft i Norge og Storbritannia

“…Gjennom å øke pensjonsalderen gradvis over tid, gir den britiske løsningen i utgangspunktet bedre beskyttelse mot risikoen for utilstrekkelig inntekt i perioden som pensjonist. Men et problematisk aspekt er at det for noen kan bli for lang tid å vente før pensjonen kan tas ut, eller at tiden som pensjonist blir veldig kort (Foster, 2012). Et hovedproblem ved denne strategien er også her hvorvidt det eksisterer et tilstrekkelig sosialt sikkerhetsnett for de som ikke har mulighet til å arbeide frem til pensjonsalder (Silcock, 2012).…”

Why do people opt-out or not opt-out of automatic enrolment? A focus group study of automatic enrolment into a workplace pension in the United Kingdom

“…There is surprisingly little data though on public attitudes to pension reforms in general, as well as to AE in particular (Foster 2012;MacLeod et al 2012;Jaime-Castillo 2013;Inland Revenue 2015). So far, three countries have introduced AE at a national level, that is the UK, Italy and New Zealand (Collard and Moore 2010;Collard 2013;Rinaldi 2011).…”

“…Open coding involved writing analytical memos that can pick important themes. Foster (2012) observes that these memos need not be mutually exclusive and so several memos can apply to the same extract. Following Foster (2012), the approach used in this study was to revisit the open coding once several transcripts had been obtained.…”

“…The research used a standard approach for analysing qualitative data (Strauss and Corbin 1990;Charmaz 2000;Foster 2012). This involved a threefold process of open coding, axial coding and selective coding.…”