Better prepared for retirement? Using panel data to improve wealth estimates of ELSA respondents

We compare the key assumptions underpinning estimates of the pension wealth of ELSA respondents to outcomes over the period from 2002-03 to 2004-05. We find that many of these assumptions have, on average, proved cautious or reasonable. Improving pension wealth calculations using this new evidence makes little difference to the distribution of pension wealth. Previous estimates of retirement resources also considered net financial, physical and housing wealth. Particularly cautious, ex-post, was the assumption that net housing wealth would remain constant in real terms. We find that average housing wealth has risen by almost 40% in nominal terms over just two years, which is in line with growth in the Nationwide House Price Index. This large increase in house prices boosts estimates of total wealth across the entire distribution of wealth. Previous research showed that once half of current net housing wealth was included as a retirement resource 12.6% of employees approaching retirement were estimated to have resources below the Pensions Commission's definition of adequacy. We show that taking into account the high growth in house prices between 2002-03 and 2004-05 reduces this to 10.9%, and that it would fall by a further 1.2 percentage points if house prices were to grow by 2.5% a year in real terms in the future.

Occupational pension value in the public and private sectors

It is well known that in the UK defined benefit pensions are more prevalent in the public sector than in the private sector. Furthermore, we find that the average value of accrual to members of both defined benefit pensions and defined contribution pensions is lower in the private sector than in the public sector. As a result of both these factors, we find that the average value of pension accrual is much higher in the public sector than in the private sector. Due to the long-running shift away from defined benefit pensions to less generous workplace defined contribution pensions in the private sector continuing between 2001 and 2005 the difference in average pension accrual between the sectors increased over this period. While on average over this period earnings in the public sector grew 3.5% faster than in the private sector, including pension accrual increases this difference by one-third to 4.7%. We simulate a plausible reform to the public sector defined benefit pensions - an increase in the normal pension age from 60 to 65 for future pension accrual of all current members. We find that, had this reform been implemented between 2001 and 2005, average growth in total remuneration over this period in the public sector would actually have been almost the same as that in the private sector.

How much do lifetime earnings explain retirement resources?

We use a unique dataset, containing individual survey data from the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing linked to administrative data on earnings histories from administrative records, to construct measures of lifetime earnings and examine how these relate to financial resources in retirement. Retirement income and wealth at retirement is, as expected, positively correlated with lifetime earnings but there is also substantial dispersion in retirement income and retirement wealth among people with similar lifetime earnings. For example, we find that those with greater numerical ability and higher education tend to have greater retirement resources even after controlling for differences in lifetime earnings. The retirement resources of single women are far less well explained by their own lifetime earnings than those of couples or single men. We hypothesise that, as the vast majority of single women in the age group considered had previously been married and are now widowed or divorced, this reflects the fact that we do not observe the lifetime earnings of their former spouses.Lifetime earnings, savings, wealth, retirement

The value of teachers' pensions

As private sector employers have moved away from providing final salary defined benefit (DB) pensions to their employees, attention has increasingly focused on the public sector's continued provision of such pensions and the value of these pension promises to public sector employees. The estimated underlying liabilities of such plans have increased sharply in recent years, at least in part due to unanticipated increases in longevity. This has led to reforms of all the major public sector pension schemes, the net result of which has been to reduce the level of benefits offered by the schemes (predominantly to new, rather than existing members). This paper examines, in the context of the Teachers' Pension Scheme (TPS), how much the pension promises are worth and what effect the change in scheme rules has had on them. This paper also addresses a number of other issues that are important when valuing DB pension rights and their relation to overall remuneration. First, how increases in current pay feed through into pension values. Second, how the age profile of earnings affects the profile of pension accrual. Finally, how the value of pension rights in DB schemes compares to that in a stylised defined contribution (DC) scheme. The figures presented in this paper relate specifically to the composition of members and the specific scheme rules of the TPS. However, the issues raised apply equally to other DB schemes, both public and private sector.

What is a public sector pension worth?

We measure accruals in defined benefit (DB) pension plans for public and private sector workers in Britain, using typical differences in scheme rules and sector-specific lifetime age-earnings profiles by sex and educational group. We show not just that coverage by DB pension plans is greater in the public sector, but that median pension accruals as a % of salary are almost 5% higher among DB-covered public sector workers than covered private sector workers. This is largely driven by earlier normal pension (retirement) ages. For workers of different ages in the two sectors, marginal accruals also vary as a result of differences in earnings profiles across the sectors. The differences in earnings profiles across sectors should induce caution in using calculated coefficients on wages from cross sections of data in order to estimate sectoral wage effects.

Estimating pension wealth of ELSA respondents

This paper explains the methodology used for calculating pension wealth for all individuals in the first wave of the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (ELSA). We focus on the pension wealth of individuals aged between 50 and the state pension age. Both state and private pension wealth has been calculated and each has been calculated both on the basis of immediate retirement in 2002 and on the basis of retirement at the state pension age. Sensitivity analysis of our assumptions is also presented, which shows that the distribution of pension wealth is sensitive to our assumptions about the discount rate and contracting out histories but insensitive to assumptions about future earnings growth, future annuity rates and future asset returns.

Retirement in the 21st century

Since 1995, employment rates of men in their 50s and 60s have steadily increased, following a long period of decline from the late 1960s. At the same time, employment rates of older women have continued to increase. This growth in employment rates was only somewhat arrested during the recent recession. This report looks at the factors that have contributed to this growth in employment rates and, in particular, what might explain the turnaround in the trend for older men in the mid-1990s. We survey the recent literature and present a new analysis of data from the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing, which covers the period from 2002-03 to 2012-13. In this report, we distinguish between factors affecting mainly the demand for older workers and those affecting mainly the supply of older workers. However, in practice, it is very difficult to disentangle the effects of the two

From Me to You? How the UK State Pension System Redistributes

The redistributive objectives of the UK state pension system have often been somewhat ambiguous, and have changed over time as different governments have come and gone. In this paper, we use detailed data on households' histories of employment, earnings and contributions to the National Insurance (NI) system to examine the degree of intragenerational redistribution achieved by the UK state pension system for the cohort born in the 1930s. We also estimate what redistribution could have been achieved by alternative stylised state pension systems, which approximate the steady-state version of some of the main reforms that have been implemented in the UK over the last 40 years. We find that the majority of state pension spending under all the systems we consider reflects a transfer of money across individuals' lifetimes, rather than between different individuals in the cohort. Comparisons between the different state pension systems, in terms of the extent of redistribution they imply, depend crucially on the stance taken as to whether or not individuals in couples pool their resources

Occupational pension value in the public and private sectors

It is well known that in the UK defined benefit pensions are more prevalent in the public sector than in the private sector. Furthermore, we find that the average value of accrual to members of both defined benefit pensions and defined contribution pensions is lower in the private sector than in the public sector. As a result of both these factors, we find that the average value of pension accrual is much higher in the public sector than in the private sector. Due to the long-running shift away from defined benefit pensions to less generous workplace defined contribution pensions in the private sector continuing between 2001 and 2005 the difference in average pension accrual between the sectors increased over this period. While on average over this period earnings in the public sector grew 3.5% faster than in the private sector, including pension accrual increases this difference by one-third to 4.7%. We simulate a plausible reform to the public sector defined benefit pensions - an increase in the normal pension age from 60 to 65 for future pension accrual of all current members. We find that, had this reform been implemented between 2001 and 2005, average growth in total remuneration over this period in the public sector would actually have been almost the same as that in the private sector

A single-tier pension: what does it really mean?

A significant reform of the UK's state pension system is currently being enacted. From 2016-17, the basic state pension and state second pension will be replaced by a new single-tier pension for everyone below the state pension age (SPA). This will bring an end to earnings-related state pension accrual in the UK. This marks the latest step on a long, tortuous and rather circular journey - a journey that started in the early 1970s with a basic state pension worth about £145 a week (in current earnings terms) and that has finally ended up in much the same place. The major difference between the 1974 system and the proposed new system is that the new system will be essentially universal, with considerably more extensive crediting of unpaid activities than was available in 1974..