This paper examines the asset positions of households at and around retirement in Britain using the Retirement Survey ‘waves’ of 1988-89 and 1994. The data provide the first panel evidence on retirement behaviour and asset evolution for a sample of older households in Britain. The analysis...

The basic state retirement pension is payable irrespective of means but it is a contributory benefit, not a universal benefit. Individuals who do not have enough National Insurance contributions when they reach state pension age are not entitled to a full state pension. They may receive a...

One-and-a-half million pensioners are dependent on the minimum means-tested benefit, income support. But the numbers on income support have barely changed in two decades despite substantial increases in its value and that of its precursor, supplementary benefit. At least another 2 million...

This paper uses two waves of the UK Retirement Survey to look at how incomes change during retirement. We concentrate on men aged 65-69 and women aged 60-69 in 1988-89 and look at how their incomes change over the following five years. Overall, we find a considerable degree of stability in real...

Private pensions seem likely to provide the dominant source of income for the majority of retired workers in the future. New private pension instruments developed since 1986, notably personal pensions, have proved popular, but concern as to ‘overselling’ of personal pensions and as to the...

The worldwide stock market crashes of October 1987 were a cause of major public concern at the time, because of the natural fear that they would be followed by economic collapse, as was the case in 1929. The fact that this pattern shows no sign of being repeated is an enormous relief for all of...

At first sight, the technicalities of social securtiy benefit indexation are a somewhat abstruse topic, suitable only for the journals and handbooks of tax and finance practitioners. Yet the nature of benefit indexation systems has major implications both for trends in the living standards of...

The Social Security Act 1986 allowed a wider range of pension schemes to contract out of the state earnings-related pension scheme (SERPS). Individuals now have a good idea of choice concerning their pension strategy, and an evaluation of this strategy involves some complex decision-making by...