Working Later: Raising the effective age of retirement

Working Later shows how difficult it will be to secure a political and popular consensus on pensions reform but shows how important it is to make any reforms transparent if the legacy of mistrust over pensions is to be overcome. In the first part of this report, Peter Robinson discusses the objectives of pensions reform and the problem of early labour market withdrawal. Examining the experience of other countries he shows how common are the problems of pensions reform and sets out some of the options facing the UK. At some point policy-makers will have to grasp the nettle of an increase in the state pension age. In the second part, Tim Gosling and Miranda Lewis detail a series of ippr focus groups on people's attitudes to retirement and working later. They find evidence of considerable hostility to working and receiving the state pension later than 65, with many distrusting data on increased life expectancy.