There has been lots of recent research and debate on individuals’ accumulation of wealth for retirement, driven by the concern that younger generations are not saving enough. Much less attention, however, has been paid to how individuals use their wealth once in retirement. In this note, we summarise the findings of recent and new IFS research addressing this omission and considering the use of different components of wealth in retirement.

In this briefing note, we examine how individuals’ financial wealth evolves as they age through retirement.

The extent to which people draw on their housing wealth in later life is an important issue, with implications for the living standards of current older individuals and their use of other financial resources, the likely bequests that will be received by younger generations, and policymakers’ assessment of the financial preparedness for later life of current younger individuals. Housing mobility at older age also has implications for the turnover and appropriateness of the housing stock.

Over the past 40 years, the UK has seen an almost continual rise in the proportion of women in employment. The employment rate among women of ‘prime working age’ (aged 25-54) is up from 57% in 1975 to a record high of 78% in 2017.

The Scottish Parliament's Finance and Constitution Committee is seeking views on how EU funding for agriculture, economic development and innovation m

We study household income inequality in both Great Britain and the United States and the interplay between labour market earnings and the tax system.

The business rates retention scheme (BRRS) means that councils bear a proportion of the real-terms change in business rates revenues in their areas. When the BRRS was introduced in 2013–14, this proportion was up to 50%. However, since April 2017, the government has been piloting 100% retention of real-terms changes in business rates revenues in a number of areas of England. From April 2018, a further 10 areas are piloting 100% schemes. In this briefing note, we examine two questions. First, what are the financial implications of the pilots for different councils? In particular, what is the financial benefit to councils taking part in the pilots, and what does this imply for those councils not in pilot areas? Second, what can be learnt from these pilots? The government has explicitly set out what it hopes to learn, but how informative are the pilots actually likely to be?