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The unexpectedly rapid ageing of the population makes it urgent that we design a system that will encourage those who can provide for their own retirement while helping those who reach the end of their working lives with insufficient wealth to sustain what society regards as an acceptable standard of living. These objectives frequently - and perhaps inherently - conflict. In dealing as best they can with the inevitable trade-offs, policymakers need to have three important questions (among many others) in mind.
First, is the financial support offered to pensioners by the state in retirement sustainable in terms of the burden it places on the working population, who pick up most of the bill in the form of taxation? Second, are the mechanisms by which the private financial sector helps people save for retirement sustainable in the sharing of risk between employers and employees? And, third, is the way in which the state and private systems interact sustainable in the sense that the combination promises people a reasonable degree of financial security without creating unduly powerful disincentives for them to work and save? Research in this area looks at these questions. We look in detail at the impact of various government reforms and proposals for reform to the pension system. Search
Sarah Tanner
This note looks at the kind of information people have on saving and how this effects their decisions to invest in the future. We also ask what policies could be used to provide people with clear information which they trust.
In this paper we describe the information available in the Retirement Survey, together with other sources of data that might be used by someone wanting to study retirement behaviour in the UK.
Carl Emmerson and Sarah Tanner
The government published its first plans for stakeholder pensions in December 1998. Since then more flesh has been put on the bones with the publication of six disussion papers each focusing on a different aspects of stakeholder pensions -the minimum standards, the employer access requirement, the clearing arrangements, regulation, advice and information, governance and the tax regime. This note summarises - and critically appraises - the government's proposals
This paper considers the relevance of a set of generational accounts in informing policy debate in the UK.
Richard Disney, Robert Palacios and Edward Whitehouse
The paper examines social security (public pension) reforms in which the programme is partially shifted from a public unfunded basis to a private, prefunded, basis.
Richard Disney and Sarah Tanner
This paper analyses retirement expectations and outcomes using the two waves of the UK Retirement Survey, undertaken in 1988-89 and 1994.
Richard Disney, Carl Emmerson and Sarah Tanner
This commentary assesses the government's proposals. It provides a detailed description of the current pension system and asks whether there is a case for reform. It looks at how much pensioners are likely to benefit from the Minimum Income Guarantee and how the new State Second Pension compares with SERPS. It evaluates the government's plans for Stakeholder Pensions and presents new evidence on the employment, earnings and other savings of the people whom the government sees as targets for Stakeholder Pensions.
In this paper we begin by describing the labour market behaviour of individuals around pension age.
Browse publications & research
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 Started: 11 April 2011
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  Past research into pension reform has contributed to evidence given to government on public service pensions.
Reform of the complex French state pension system was informed by recommendations by IFS researchers.
IFS researchers present and discuss new research on retirement saving with a group of business leaders and policy makers.
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