Reports

In this report, we seek to explain this decline in pension saving amongst the self-employed. We examine the extent to which the decline has been driven by the changing characteristics of the self-employed population. We then explore changing attitudes towards pension saving, and changes in other forms of saving that might represent alternative ways of saving for retirement (and therefore provide an explanation for the patterns in pension saving).

Wave 9 of ELSA was carried out in 2018/2019, and the report includes substantive chapters on economic, social, and health issues, together with tables of cross-sectional and longitudinal results.

Expanding access to health care is once again high on the US political agenda, as is concern about those who are being “left behind.” But is universal health care that is largely free at the point of use sufficient to eliminate inequalities in health care use? To explore this question, we studied variation in the use of hospital care among education-level-defined groups of older adults in England, before and after controlling for differences in health status. In England, the National Health Service (NHS) provides health care free to all, but the growth rate for NHS funding has slowed markedly since 2010 during a widespread austerity program, potentially increasing inequalities in access and use.

Older people have been severely affected by the coronavirus pandemic in terms of their health and mortality, but less focus has been given to the financial impact on older adults. Using new data from the COVID-19 questionnaire of the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (ELSA), we investigate how adults in their 50s and older have been affected financially by the pandemic.

School spending covers pupils in state-funded schools aged 5–16, as well as pupils aged 16–19 in school sixth forms. In 2019–20, total spending on schools in England represented about £51 billion (in 2020–21 prices), accounting for 17% of total public service spending in England.

This report provides estimates of the earnings returns to completing postgraduate degrees, for British and Northern Irish students studying in Britain.

A socially mobile country provides equal opportunities for everyone, across big cities and small towns, and regardless of whether your parents are rich or poor. This report makes use of newly linked administrative data on all state-educated pupils born between 1986 and 1988 to follow a group of sons from where they grew up, looking at their family circumstances and their educational achievement, through to the labour market.

The COVID-19 (coronavirus) pandemic and associated containment measures are expected to cause far-reaching damage to economies around the world. Firms are suffering from reduced demand due to movement restrictions, from reduced labor supply and from constraints to sourcing material inputs. The breakup of otherwise healthy businesses in response to a temporary shock implies large social costs. Governments are therefore intent on designing emergency policies to keep businesses afloat. In this brief, the authors present simulations using firm-level tax records from Uganda, which vary the duration of the lockdown and the relative impact across sectors.

The COVID-19 (coronavirus) pandemic and associated containment measures are expected to cause far-reaching damage to economies around the world. Firms are suffering from reduced demand due to movement restrictions, from reduced labour supply and from constraints to sourcing material inputs. The breakup of otherwise healthy businesses in response to a temporary shock implies large social costs. Governments are therefore intent on designing emergency policies to keep businesses afloat. In this brief, the authors present simulations using firm-level tax records from Ethiopia, which vary the duration of the lockdown and the relative impact across sectors.

The IFS Deaton Review was launched to understand the causes of economic and social inequalities, and their effects on societies and on our political discourse. Such an analysis is particularly important for the economics and politics of trade policy: trade and globalisation can have important economic benefits, but these benefits are often widely, and thinly, spread across many consumers, while the costs of factory closures and changing employment structures can fall disproportionately on specific population groups.