State pension eligibility age and retirement behaviour: evidence from the United Kingdom household longitudinal study

Publication type

Journal Article

Series Number

Authors

Publication date

July 8, 2025

Summary:

We examine individuals’ retirement behaviour in response to changes in the State Pension eligibility age (SPe-age) introduced in UK Pension Acts. Our findings show that the annual probability of retirement reduced significantly in response to a one-year increase in SPe-age, by 8.2pp and 6.4pp for men and women, respectively. They also show that younger individuals can adjust their Expected Age of Retirement (EAR) downwards in response to an increase in their SPe-age. Thus, while an increase in the SPe-age induces individuals to postpone actual retirement, it does not necessarily lead to certain groups of individuals to revise their EAR upwards, which could result in suboptimal retirement planning. The latter can be problematic for those with low occupational pension wealth and/or individuals who rely disproportionately on State Pension. Our findings suggest the need for targeted communication campaigns aimed at specific groups of prime aged workers to improve their retirement planning.

Published in

Journal of Pension Economics and Finance

DOI

https://doi.org/10.1017/S1474747225000095

ISSN

14747472

Subjects

Notes

Open Access

This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution and reproduction, provided the original article is properly cited.

© The Author(s), 2025. Published by Cambridge University Press.

Online Early

#588679

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