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Money Box: The Death of Retirement

Money Box: The Death of Retirement: The Retreat of Employers

The Retreat of Employers

12/08/2017

The Death of Retirement

BBC Radio 4 - Money Box, The Death of Retirement, The Retreat of Employers

Occupational pensions - the origins and the future of employer involvement.

Series exploring what retirement might look like in the future. What role do employers have in providing us with a way to fund our retirement?

For many people, the workplace pension has been the crux of a decent income in retirement - a guaranteed sum paid for the whole of your non-working life. Stockmarket fluctuations, our increasing longevity and well-meaning changes to pensions policy by successive governments have helped make these sorts of schemes unaffordable. At the same time, something equally fundamental has been happening to the structure of the workplace as well as the nature of the relationship and expectations between employer and employee. 

The last 10 years has seen the closure of 60% of schemes which would guarantee you a 'wage' in retirement. Since 2012 a system of auto enrollment has instead required all employers to offer a pension that employees are opted into by default. But these come without any assurances about future pay outs and contribution rates are low.

So what role do employers' pension schemes now have in providing us with a comfortable retirement? 

Presenter: Adam Shaw
Producer: Alex Lewis 
Editor: Andrew Smith.

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Series that explores what retirement might look like in the future.

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