There has been much concern about people not saving enough for retirement in the UK and how to encourage further saving. This has led to pension policy developments, including the introduction of auto-enrolment, a form of ‘soft’ compulsion, to ‘nudge’ people to save. Given that young working age cohorts have longest to contribute to pensions and have traditionally been least likely to save for retirement, it is important to investigate their attitudes and expectations in relation to pensions and the potential effects of auto-enrolment on their future retirement income. This study utilises the findings of thirty interviews with young people aged eighteen to thirty about their opportunities and attitudes towards pensions, and identifies a variety of factors which affect pension contributions, including knowledge and advice, trust and myopia. It then focuses explicitly on auto-enrolment before concluding that if auto-enrolment is to succeed, people need to be reassured beyond doubt that it ‘pays to save’.

The UK Pensions Commission confirmed that women's domestic roles are crucial to their pension disadvantage. As a result, measures enacted in the Pensions Acts of 2007 and 2008 aimed to make state pensions more inclusive for those with periods out of the labour market for family caring, as well as encouraging more saving through private pensions by those with low to moderate earnings. Will these legislative changes, and subsequent reforms and plans, substantially reduce future gender inequality in UK pensions? In this article, we suggest the benefits to women will be patchy and overall less than expected. We first review the interaction of male-oriented pension schemes with the gendered division of caring labour and how this has changed for later cohorts of women. We then analyse, from a gender perspective, the pension reforms and proposals since 2007. Finally, we consider policy alternatives that would give women a better deal in pensions and conclude with an assessment of the mixed effects of pension reforms.