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Centre for Policy on Ageing | |
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When do benevolent capitalists change their mind?
— explaining the retrenchment of defined-benefit pensions in Britain | | Author(s) | Paul Bridgen, Traute Meyer |
| Journal title | Social Policy & Administration, vol 39, no 7, December 2005 |
| Pages | pp 764-785 |
| Source | http://www.blackwell-synergy.com |
| Keywords | Pensions ; Private pensions ; Social welfare. |
| Annotation | The politics of welfare retrenchment is explored. However, this paper differs from much of the current literature, by focusing not on the decisions of politicians, but those of private sector employers. In countries with a large private welfare sector, employers are major social policy players with a significant influence on the generosity of welfare provision, but the rationale behind their actions is not well understood. To explore these issues, a case study is used of the recent fundamental change in UK occupational pension provision, involving a rapid shift from defined-benefit to defined-contribution pensions. The paper shows by means of a micro-simulation of the relative performance of defined-benefit, defined-contribution and state pensions that this shift represents a significant retrenchment. It uses historical material, interview data and insights from behavioural economics to suggest that while existing explanations for this change are valuable, there are important gaps because they are based on too narrow a conceptualisation of business motives. In this regard, the paper highlights the importance of herd behaviour. (KJ/RH). |
| Accession Number | CPA-051219224 A |
| Classmark | JJ: JK: TY |
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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