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Centre for Policy on Ageing | |
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| Personal pension take-up in the 1990s in relation to position in the labour market | | Author(s) | Jay Ginn, Sara Arber |
| Journal title | Journal of Social Policy, vol 29, part 2, April 2000 |
| Pages | pp 205-228 |
| Keywords | Personal pensions ; Private pensions ; Economic status [elderly] ; Employees ; Social policy ; Social surveys. |
| Annotation | Pension reform in Western societies has sought to shift the balance of provision towards the private sector. In Britain, the 1986 Social Security Act marked a watershed in privatisation, by promoting personal pensions while cutting the value of the State Earnings Related Pension Scheme (SERPS). This article assesses the Act's effectiveness, especially the implications of gender and position in the labour market. Data from the 1993/4 and 1994/5 General Household Survey (GHS) is used to examine the changing pension arrangements of employees. The authors distinguish between personal pension membership among those who rejected the opportunity to belong to an occupational pension, and those for whom this option was not available. The extent to which personal pensions were taken up by the intended target group or by those unlikely to benefit is assessed. Rejecting membership of an occupational scheme was associated with labour market disadvantage, but those who opted for a personal pension were more advantaged than those who remained in SERPS. Among those lacking access to an occupational pension scheme, take-up was higher among younger and more advantaged employees. However, a substantial proportion of personal pension contributors were low paid - especially among women employed part-time - illustrating the extent of mis-selling of personal pensions to those who are likely to have been better off in SERPS. (RH). |
| Accession Number | CPA-000608227 A |
| Classmark | JKG: JK: F:W: WK: TM2: 3F |
Data © Centre for Policy on Ageing |
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| ...from the Ageinfo database published by Centre for Policy on Ageing. |
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