Subjective financial assessments are used by social scientists as a measure of financial well-being and by households as the basis for action. Financial well-being, however, increasingly requires workers to build-up savings to meet hard-to-see future needs, specifically retirement, their children’s education, and paying off student loans.

It’s often said that in real estate, it’s all about “location, location, location.” But physical location also appears to have an impact on participation in an employment-based retirement plan, according to a new report from the nonpartisan Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI).

This report primarily examines part-time pension recipients who retired between the years 2005–2009. The report is based on register data, through which, for the first time, it is now possible to comprehensively take into account all earnings that accrue statutory pension.

Existing research shows that adjustment to retirement is correlated with pre-retirement planning. This study presents new insights into the retirement preparedness of Australians at the later stages of working life.

This report analyses the range of retirement incomes various individuals might achieve from a Defined Contribution pension. It also analyses the contribution rate necessary for different individuals to have a “good chance” of achieving an adequate level of retirement income.

This study argues that the promotion of union goals could have positive, negative, or neutral effects on risk adjusted return performance. Moreover, the union’s ability and incentive to use pension assets to promote union goals will vary with the design of the pension.

Millions of individuals in the UK are not saving enough for their retirement. The Workplace Pension Reforms are a response to some of the key challenges facing the UK pensions system.

Using 1977-2011 data from the Current Population Survey, this paper investigates the often-repeated claim that delayed retirement by baby boomers will result in higher unemployment among the young, a claim which has been garnering increased attention from the media during the Great Recession.

Between 2007 and 2009, the percent of 62 year olds claiming Social Security benefits reversed a decade-long decline and increased sharply before reverting back to trend. This phenomenon raises two ques-tions: 1) who was induced to claim early?; and 2) how much monthly retirement income have they lost as a result? To address these questions, this brief, which reflects findings from a recent paper, uses individual-level data from the Health and Retirement Study (HRS).

The purpose of this paper is to estimate the effect of occupational pensions (OPs) on wages for a large sample of Norwegian private sector firms. Knowledge about the offset between pensions and wages is becoming increasingly important, as OPs are expected to play a more prominent role in retirement provision in many countries where governments seek to reduce their pension commitments.

Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) applica-tions and benefit receipts vary greatly by state, which has led to concerns about potential inconsistencies in the way that states apply disability standards.1 An earlier brief concluded that more than 70 percent of the variation across states in SSDI application rates is explained by state health, demographic, and employment characteristics; state policies and politics explain very little.2 Another concern has been the growth in the SSDI program over time. This brief uses the same data as the earlier analysis to answer a related ques-tion: How much of the trends in SSDI application rates within states can be explained by the different factors?

The UK's pension policy framework is built around voluntary private pension saving, on top of a universal state pension. The voluntary savings pillar involves significant financial incentives to save: there is tax relief on contributions from income, as well as on capital gains in defined contribution plans.