Official launch: Prepared for Retirement? The adequacy and distribution of retirement resources in England

• How much income can the next cohort of pensioners in England expect to receive in their retirement and how will it compare to their current income?
• Will it be what they are expecting?
• Where will this income come from state pensions, private pensions, or other assets?
• Who is at risk of having an income that could be considered inadequate?

IFS will hold a briefing on Tuesday 11 October from 10am to 12pm to launch its new report Prepared for Retirement? The adequacy and distribution of retirement resources in England. This report provides the most comprehensive analysis to date of the retirement resources available to the next cohort of pensioners The analysis is particularly timely given the imminent release of the second report of the Pensions Commission on 30 November 2005.

Retirement saving is a major policy issue in the UK. Since past reforms of the state pension system appear to have reduced the projected cost of this system to a financially sustainable level, the debate in the UK (unlike in much of the rest of Europe) has focussed on the adequacy of future pensioner incomes. This, in turn, has led to a focus on increasing the labour market participation of older working age individuals and getting individuals to save greater amounts privately than earlier cohorts.

To date, much of this debate has been predicated on the assumption that many individuals are not saving enough to fund their retirement. However, a lack of suitable data means that remarkably little has been known about the level of total wealth that future generations will have to fund their consumption in retirement (and crucially how equally, or otherwise, this will be distributed across families or individuals) Using new microdata, this report describes the current distribution of resources held in pensions (state and private) and other forms of wealth that could be used to finance the retirement consumption of the next generation of pensioners in England. Combining this with evidence on individuals expectations of working at older ages and receipt of inheritances we estimate how many individuals in this cohort are at risk of having inadequate resources for their retirement, according to various different benchmarks. We also investigate how their retirement income from private pensions might compare to their current expectations.

All delegates attending this briefing will receive a copy of the report.