Personal Finances

This chapter of Pension Trends looks at the broader picture of saving for retirement by using the second wave of the Wealth and Assets Survey (WAS) to estimate financial, property and private pension saving.

This chapter is about how pension schemes ensure that they have the money to fulfil their obligations of paying out benefits to pensioners and their dependents. Specifically, the chapter is about ‘funded’ pension schemes, those in which benefits (the schemes’ liabilities) are met from a fund built up in advance from contributions and returns on investment. It does not cover ‘unfunded’ (or pay-as-you-go) pension schemes – most public sector occupational pension schemes and the state pension system – where liabilities are not underpinned by a fund.

This chapter examines trends in labour market participation and the transition from work to retirement. Labour market activity is important in the context of pensions because earnings from employment help people to build savings and to make private pension contributions to fund their retirement. Employment also builds entitlement to state pension provision. Questions about pressures on pension adequacy and whether people are extending their working lives in response to increasing life expectancy is one reason why the transition from work to retirement is of interest. The chapter begins by looking at how the economic support ratio, a measure of the economic burden on working people, might be affected by the ageing of the UK population. It then examines changes in labour force participation over time, considers labour force participation of older age groups and examines trends in the average age of withdrawal from the labour market.

This podcast focuses on the financial liabilities of households in Great Britain, examining both the self-reported burden of this debt and the characteristics of those households with financial debt.

This release contains the main tables from The Effects of Taxes and Benefits on Household Income publication for 1977 onwards. These tables have been reproduced using the new modified-OECD income equivalisation scale that has been used in this publication from 2009/10.

A summary of Pension Trends Chapter 12: Household pension resources, reviewing the number of pensioner households in receipt of state benefits (including state retirement pension) and private pensions. It also reviews the proportions of pensioner male, female and couple households by the amount of annual payments received.

This video summarises the key messages from the Income of Retired Households release.

The annual report of the OPSS provides a detailed view of the nature of occupational pension provision in the UK, including estimates of pension scheme membership and contributions. This animated video podcast shows some of the key findings of the report.

Private pension scheme membership summary

This short video summarises the story looking at poverty in the UK and Europe.

This short video summarises the key statistics from the Pension Trends releases on 16 February 2012

Access to all chapters of Pension Trends is available here: www.ons.gov.uk/ons/about-ons/our-statistics/publications/pension-trends/index.html

Key results from Pension Trends Chapter 4 (2012 edition): The labour market and retirement

Average weekly household expenditure on main commodities and services, 2010, UK

Podcast of 2010 figures is available

Key results from the Occupational Pension Schemes Survey 2010