Social differentiation in later life: Exploring the interaction between wealth, education and retirement trajectories in Japan and the UK

晚年的社会分化：探索日本和英国财富、教育和退休轨迹之间的相互作用

• 批准号: ES/S013695/1
• 负责人: Misa Izuhara
• 金额: $ 3.11万
• 依托单位: University of Bristol
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Research Grant
• 财政年份: 2019
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2019 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=ES%2FS013695%2F1
• 关键词: Social; differentiation; later; life; Exploring

The process of retirement is becoming more complex and differentiated in terms of timing and resources. 'Active Ageing' policies in many societies now encourage older workers to work up to and beyond retirement age. However, the reasons and opportunities to do so depend greatly on individual factors such as skills, incomes and health status. The level of education also matters in retirement process since different educational groups have different information, resources and attitudes toward investment for later life. Better educated people are for example more likely to retire on a planned basis with sufficient income and assets. Another key influence on retirement, which is absent from existing research, is the importance of household wealth - home ownership, in particular. Home ownership as an asset-base has been recognised as a key to build social and financial capital and to access increasingly privatised welfare in old age. While housing wealth is the primary component of personal wealth for the majority of households in home-owning societies, this is however not necessarily the case in societies with high rates of personal savings and/or suffering from housing price depreciation. Access to home ownership has declined among younger cohorts in many societies which means future generations are expected to work longer.This project will therefore go beyond the conventional indicators of income and formal retirement age to analyse social inequalities in later life. Instead, it will explore and identify the relationship between housing wealth, the level of education, and extended working life of ageing baby-boomers in Japan and the UK. The cross-national analysis is a vital part of the project since opportunities and constraints to work longer vary significantly between countries. In order to understand inequalities at retirement, we need to gain more insight into how institutional systems (e.g. retirement age, social security, attitudes of employers) and individual human capital (e.g. skills, qualifications) together influence retirement processes of older people. The rationales to compare Japan and the UK are: they are both home-owning societies but with contrasting housing price appreciation (UK) and depreciation (Japan); in both societies, saving towards retirement is largely privatised, and the state and employers are encouraging older people to work longer with incentives and sanctions.The main objective of this Connection project is to bring together scholars with different disciplinary backgrounds of Social Policy, Economics, Management and Housing Studies to develop the knowledge and understanding of the relationships between wealth, education, work and retirement in different welfare systems. A series of workshops are planned in Japan and the UK to provide a platform for the project members to exchange ideas, analyse comparative data, and identify methodological challenges. The workshops are not only an avenue for scholarly discussion, but also for knowledge exchange with non-academic stakeholders. It aims to provide information, analysis and insight to help policy makers, unions, employers and other organisations in supporting older people in financial and later-life career planning. The preliminary findings of the project will be disseminated using a project webpage, blog posts, academic article/s and a policy briefing including employers good practice. The project will contribute to reframing policy debate surrounding extended working life and explore early interventions in retirement planning. This is a new collaboration and the project team members have complementary research skills and expertise as well as a strong track record of comparative analysis.

退休过程在时间和资源方面变得更加复杂和不同。许多社会的"积极老龄化"政策现在鼓励老年工人工作到退休年龄或超过退休年龄。然而，这样做的原因和机会在很大程度上取决于个人因素，如技能、收入和健康状况。教育水平在退休过程中也很重要，因为不同的教育群体对晚年生活的投资有不同的信息、资源和态度。例如，受过良好教育的人更有可能在有足够收入和资产的情况下按计划退休。另一个影响退休的关键因素是家庭财富的重要性，特别是房屋所有权。自置居所作为一种资产基础，被认为是建立社会和金融资本以及老年人获得日益私有化的福利的关键。虽然在拥有住房的社会中，住房财富是大多数家庭个人财富的主要组成部分，但在个人储蓄率高和/或住房价格贬值的社会中，情况不一定如此。在许多社会中，年轻人拥有住房的机会减少，这意味着未来几代人的工作时间将更长。因此，该项目将超越收入和正式退休年龄的传统指标，分析晚年的社会不平等。相反，它将探索和确定日本和英国婴儿潮一代老龄化的住房财富，教育水平和延长工作寿命之间的关系。跨国分析是该项目的重要组成部分，因为各国延长工作时间的机会和限制因素差异很大。为了理解退休方面的不平等，我们需要更深入地了解制度体系（例如退休年龄、社会保障、雇主的态度）和个人人力资本（例如技能、资格）如何共同影响老年人的退休过程。比较日本和英国的理由是：他们都是拥有住房的社会，但房价上涨（英国）和贬值（日本）形成鲜明对比;在这两个社会中，退休储蓄基本上是私有化的，国家和雇主正在通过奖励和制裁鼓励老年人工作更长时间。这个连接项目的主要目标是汇集具有不同学科背景的学者，社会政策，经济学，管理和住房研究，以发展财富，教育，工作和退休在不同的福利制度之间的关系的知识和理解。计划在日本和英国举办一系列讲习班，为项目成员提供一个交流思想、分析比较数据和确定方法学挑战的平台。讲习班不仅是学术讨论的渠道，也是与非学术利益攸关方交流知识的渠道。它旨在提供信息、分析和见解，帮助决策者、工会、雇主和其他组织支持老年人进行财务和晚年职业规划。项目的初步调查结果将通过项目网页、博客文章、学术文章和包括雇主良好做法在内的政策简报进行传播。该项目将有助于重新规划围绕延长工作寿命的政策辩论，并探讨对退休规划的早期干预。这是一次新的合作，项目小组成员具有互补的研究技能和专业知识，以及良好的比较分析记录。