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Why Employer-based Pension Plans? The Case of Britain

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 March 2009

Leslie Hannah
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Abstract

Private savings–often through employer-based pension plans–account for a larger proportion of retirement incomes in Britain than elsewhere. The strength of employer–based pension plans in Britain can be traced to a variety of factors; their early development and security are emphasized. The pattern of spread, with heavy concentration initially in bureaucratic firms, suggests that old-age saving entered the employment relationship around 1900 because large-scale bureaucracies needed conditional, lifetime payment systems. By the 1930s, the other main intermediaries for old-age saving, specializing in private provision on an individual basis, had moved into the market for collective, employer-based pension plans.

Type
Papers Presented at the Forty-fourth Annual Meeting of the Economic History Association
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 45 , Issue 2 , June 1985 , pp. 347 - 354
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 1985

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References

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21 Government Actuary, Occupational Pension Schemes, 1979 (London, 1981).Google Scholar