The Thatcher pension reforms and their consequences

自2006年底以来，人们普遍认为英国的养老金体系严重失调。关于“养老金危机”的性质和程度以及最佳补救办法的辩论一直很广泛，并产生了一些政策反应。然而，令人惊讶的是，很少有人关注这场危机的历史根源，也很少有人关注英国复杂的公共和私人养老保障体系的历史发展，这一体系既帮助创造了危机，又限制了变革的选择。20世纪80年代实施的改革标志着英国整个老年收入替代制度发展的关键时刻。然而，我们缺乏对这十年的发展及其遗产的详细历史调查，利用这一时期的主要资料。如果不充分了解养老金问题的根源，我们如何有效地解决它？缺乏这样的理解，我们就有重复过去所犯错误的危险：特别是：i）持续高估a）私营部门为低收入者提供体面养老金的能力和意愿;以及B）消费者为必要的长期储蓄提供资金和优先于中短期消费的能力和意愿; ii）持续低估既得利益阻碍和/或引导政策变化的力量，一个下-由于未能充分理解决策者必须照顾的既得利益的性质或他们在政策中部署的权力资源，过程; iii）未能充分理解长期的个人和集体合同对政策变化的限制（iv）学术界和政策执行者对政治和经济成本效益计算仍然缺乏了解，而这些计算是在一个可能是任何政策领域中时间跨度最长的领域制定政策的基础;（v）通过在系统中加入新的要素来实现“改革”的持续趋势，从而使系统随着时间的推移变得越来越复杂。它将利用政府决定实行文件公布的“20年规则”后官方和其他记录的加速公布，以详细审查20世纪80年代的政策变化。在这样做的过程中，它将建立并扩展英国战后养老金的现有研究（例如，Bridgen; Pemberton; Thane; Whiteside; and Thornton），并解决政治学中关于制度发展的重要辩论：a）正反馈效应对机构发展的影响（“路径依赖”），有助于“锁定”特定的制度结构b）渐进变化累积产生根本变化的能力c）系统中负反馈的影响及其对整个系统的发展和政府政策的制定的影响，以及d）“治理”问题和非政府行为者在政策过程中的作用。因此，它将在当代历史研究、政治学理论和当前关于21世纪英国养老金未来的政策辩论之间建立联系。1）通过将历史与当前政策联系起来，以解决国家的“养老金危机”，从而与AHRC的“关心未来”主题联系起来，2）有助于AHRC的“影响途径”，通过提高我们对英国养老金提供体系发展的理解来帮助更好地制定政策（英国是世界上最复杂的养老金提供体系之一，也是经合组织中效率最低的体系之一）。

Since the end of 2006 there has been a widespread consensus that Britain's pension system is seriously dysfunctional. The debate over the nature and extent of the 'pensions crisis,' and over ways in which it might best be remedied, has been extensive and given rise to a number of policy responses. Yet surprisingly little attention has been given to the historical roots of that crisis, or to the ways in which the historical development of Britain's complex system of public and private provision for security in old age both helped to create the crisis and constrained options for change. The reforms implemented in the 1980s marked a key moment in the development of Britain's overall system of income replacement in old age. Yet we lack any detailed historical survey of developments in that decade, and their legacy, utilising primary sources from the period. Without fully understanding the roots of the pension problem how can we solve it effectively? Lacking such an understanding we are in danger of repeating mistakes made in the past: in particular:i) a persistent over-estimation of a) the ability and willingness of the private sector to provide decent pensions for the lower-paid; and b) the ability and willingness of consumers to finance and prioritise the necessary long-term saving over short- to medium-term consumption; ii) a persistent under-estimation of the power of vested interests to obstruct and/or channel policy change, an under-estimation owing much to a failure adequately to understand either the nature of the vested interests which must be accommodated by policy makers or the power resources deployed them in the policy process; iii) a failure fully to grasp the constraints placed on policy change by very long-term individual and collective contracts (both financial and political) in pensions; iv) a continuing lack of understanding amongst both academics and policy practitioners of the political and economic cost-benefit calculations that underpin policy making in an area with perhaps the longest time-horizons of any field of policy;v) a persistent tendency to achieve 'reform' by adding new elements to the system, thus making the system more and more complex over time.The project proposed here will fill a significant void in our understanding. It will take advantage of the accelerated release of official and other records consequent on the government's decision to move to a '20-year rule' for document release in order to examine in detail the policy changes of the 1980s. In doing so, it will both build on and extend existing studies of postwar pensions in Britain (by, for example, Bridgen; Pemberton; Thane; Whiteside; and Thornton) and address important debates in political science about institutional development in terms of: a) the effect on institutional development of positive feedback effects ('path dependence') that help to 'lock-in' particular institutional configurationsb) the ability of incremental change cumulatively to produce radical changec) the impact of negative feedback in the system and its implications for both the development of the overall system and the development of government policy, and d) issues of 'governance' and the role of non-governmental actors in the policy process. As such, it will provide a link between contemporary historical research, political science theory, and present policy debates about the future of British pensions in the twenty-first century.In the process, the project will: 1) Connect to the AHRC's 'care for the future' theme by linking history with present policy to address the country's 'pensions crisis' and thus, by extension, with the future welfare of pensioners.2) Contribute to the AHRC's 'pathways to impact', aiding better policy making by enhancing our understanding of the development of Britain's system of pension provision (at once one of the most complex in the world and one of the least effective in the OECD).