Who is going to provide for me when I am older? Attitudes towards pensions and responsibility among women born between 1981-1996 in the UK

Successive UK governments have responded to pension challenges by advocating a pensions system focused on neoliberal concerns of limiting state involvement, promoting private saving and individual responsibility. These developments have led to a re-aligning of the role of the state and the individual in pensions. It is important to understand attitudes towards pension responsibility in this context, especially as these may influence the level of responsibility individuals intend to take for pension accumulation. Given that pensions are based on contributions during the life course it is necessary to comprehend attitudes towards pension responsibility in earlier stages of the working live. This is particularly necessary in relation to women who are more likely to encounter diverse life course trajectories. This article addresses this issue by exploring young women’s attitudes towards responsibility for pensions provision, drawing on interviews and a focus group with 45 women born between 1981-1996 (often termed ‘millennial’ women in the UK (Pensions Policy Institute (PPI), 2018)) undertaken between 2011 and 2021. Initially the article sets out the UK pension context and moves towards individual responsibility, considering the gendered nature of pensions. Then it explores how attitudes towards responsibility for welfare provision, pensions and responsibility have developed. It moves on to discuss the methodology, before presenting the findings from the research. It shows that the balance between the state, individual and employer, have not only been influential over successive governments, but have also become embedded in the ideas of the millennial women.