Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-gb8f7 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-22T17:20:14.299Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Paying for Early Retirement*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2009

Bernard Casey
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The paper looks at the relative importance of state benefits, employer benefits and private sources in supporting early retired men. Using data from various administrative sources, the General Household Survey and the Family Expenditure Survey, it shows how the increase in early retirement which occurred between 1979 and 1986 went hand in hand both with a greater reliance on means-tested benefits and a greater reliance on employer benefits. Although the income of the early retired was well above the minimum accorded by the ‘income support’ system, there were major differences between subgroups of the early retired—those dependent solely on state benefits and those with other sources of income, private and personal—and these differences have become more pronounced over time. Finally, the paper looks at the total costs of early retirement: to the state, to employers and to the early retired themselves. Total costs ballooned between 1979 and 1986. Much of the extra expenditure on benefits fell on employers, but the early retired themselves, through accepting a considerable reduction in their income, bore the bulk of the costs of early retirement.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Social Policy , Volume 21 , Issue 3 , July 1992 , pp. 303 - 323
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1992

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Bushell, R. (1984), Evaluation of Early Retirement Systems: Great Britain, the Job Release Scheme, Department of Employment (mimeo), London.Google Scholar
Casey, B. (1987), ‘Early retirement: the problems of “instrument substitution” and “cost-shifting” and their implications for the restructuring of the process of retirement’, International Social Security Review, 4, 343–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Casey, B. and Laczko, F. (1989), ‘Early retired or long term unemployed? The situation of non-working men aged 55–64 from 1979 to 1986’, Work, Employment and Society, 4, 509–26.Google Scholar
Government Actuary (1985), Occupational Pension Schemes 1983, HMSO, London.Google Scholar
Hills, J. (1984), Pension Fund Tax Reliefs: Pot of Gold or Can of Worms?, Working Paper No.51, Institute of Fiscal Studies, London.Google Scholar
IDS (1978), Facing up to Redundancy, Study No.178, Incomes Data Services, London.Google Scholar
IDS (1986), Redundancy Terms, Study No.369, Incomes Data Services, London.Google Scholar
IDS (1988), Redundancy Terms, Study No.422, Incomes Data Services, London.Google Scholar
IMS (1981), Redundancy Provisions Survey, Manpower Commentary No.13, Institute of Manpower Studies, University of Sussex, Sussex.Google Scholar
Jocobs, K., Kohli, M. and Rein, M. (1991), ‘A comparative analysis of labour force participation rates’, in Kohli, M., Rein, M., Guillemard, A.M. and van Gunsteren, H. (eds), Time for Retirement: Comparative Studies in Exit from the Labour Force, Cambridge University Press. Cambridge.Google Scholar
Laczko, F., Dale, A., Arber, S. and Gilbert, G.N. (1988), ‘Early retirement in a period of high unemployment’, Journal of Social Policy, 3, 313–34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Micklewright, J. (1989), ‘The strange case of British earnings-related unemployment benefit’, Journal of Social Policy, 4, 527–48.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
NAPF (annually), Annual Survey of Occupational Pension Funds, National Association of Pension Funds, London.Google Scholar
NAPF (1987a), Pensions—The Opportunity for Employer Action, National Association of Pension Funds, London.Google Scholar
SSAC (1981), First Report of the Social Security Advisory Committee, Department of Health and Social Security, HMSO, London.Google Scholar
Walker, A. (1982), ‘The social consequences of early retirement’. The Political Quarterly, 1, 61–72.CrossRefGoogle Scholar