Briefing Notes

Briefing Note 92 - How do gender differences in lifecourses affect income in retirement?

This Briefing Note follows on from Briefing Note 84. It provides an overview of the different work and family lifecourses for men and women and aims to understand how gender variations in the lifecourse affect income in retirement.

The modelling finds that there is a far greater variation of projected pension outcomes for women as a result of more varied lifecourses. Men can expect a higher pension than women who follow a similar lifecourse of working full-time throughout, as a result of the gender pay gap.

The Wellbeing, Health, Retirement and the Lifecourse project (WHERL)

WHERL is a research project investigating ageing, work and health across the lifecourse. This 3 year interdisciplinary consortium is funded by the cross-research council Lifelong Health and Wellbeing (LLHW) programme under the Extending Working Lives initiative. It examines a crucial question for ageing societies: how inequalities across the lifecourse relate to paid work in later life in the UK.

The project builds on an existing UK-Canadian collaboration examining lifecourse influences on later life work trajectories across several European countries and the US. In addition to those at the Institute of Gerontology at King’s College London, the consortium brings together a unique interdisciplinary team involving universities and partner organisations including the Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto; Research Department of Epidemiology and Public Health, University College London; Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience also at King’s College London; Manchester University; Pensions Policy Institute; Age UK; and the Department for Work and Pensions.