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This briefing note assembles the existing microeconomic evidence and sets out
economic arguments relating to the current debate on the ageing population, the timing
of retirement, and the adequacy of financial provision for retirement in the UK.
The note concludes that:
- Retirement age changes are integrally linked into the adequacy of saving for retirement. By extending working lives and therefore being less long in retirement individuals would have more time to accumulate savings (both pension and non-pension) and also need less savings.
- Low retirement income is not necessarily evidence of inadequate retirement saving. Many older households with low incomes will have had low life-time income and it is not necessarily the case that such households should have saved more given their consumption needs and the policy environment through which they have lived.
- Many unanswered research questions are key to outcomes in the future. These include: Can and will the labour market absorb more older workers? What are the consumption needs of older households? To what extent will individual behaviours (either at the saving or the retirement margin) adjust to meet the pressures of retirement income provision in an ageing population?
Authors
James Banks
James is Senior Research Fellow and Professor of Economics at Manchester, working on broad issues in the economics of retirement, savings and health.
Carl Emmerson
Carl, a Deputy Director, is an editor of the IFS Green Budget, is expert on the UK pension system and sits on the Social Security Advisory Committee.
Richard Disney
Richard is an IFS Research Associate, a Part-time Professor of Economics at the University of Sussex and a Visiting Professor of Economics at UCL.
Richard Blundell
Richard is Co-Director of the Centre for the Microeconomic Analysis of Public Policy (CPP) and Senior Research Fellow at IFS.
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