Promoting inclusivity in pension protection and saving among men and women from black and minority ethnic communities in the UK: a mixed methods study

晚年生活是个人在整个生命过程中积累经验和资源的地方。对于来自特定黑人和少数族裔(BAME)社区的老年人来说，与英国白人相比，他们晚年拥有较低经济资源和经历贫困的风险更高。然而，我们对来自不同BAME社区的个人在养老金和其他类型储蓄方面的差异的理解仍然有限。我们也不知道这些社区的人自己是如何理解晚年的财务规划的，也不知道男性和女性以及年轻人和老年人之间是否存在差异。通过一种创新的混合方法方法，包括对两个国家数据集(了解社会和家庭资源调查)的统计分析和对来自BAME社区的中年人和老年人的定性访谈，该项目旨在通过将BAME社区的个人置于调查的核心来解决这一差距。在采访之前，受访者将被送往一次性相机拍照，对他们来说，这表明了未来生活的财务规划意味着什么。这些照片将成为采访的中心，让受访者谈论他们的亲身经历和观点，并分享以前可能没有被学术研究捕捉到的见解。该项目的最终目标是通过邀请来自不同年龄段的个人的观点，并以前所未有的方式结合不同类型的数据和信息，为BAME社区的个人提供关于养老金保护和其他形式储蓄的新见解。除了以期刊文章的形式发表学术成果外，该项目还将从一开始就主办一些非学术参与活动。一个由用户代表和养老金领域的地方和国家利益攸关方组成的咨询委员会将被邀请讨论研究的目标以及如何最好地实现这些目标。这些利益攸关方包括AgeUK的南安普顿分部和南安普顿市议会的团队，这些团队在人口中促进更强大的社区、社区参与和更好的就业机会和技能，包括来自BAME社区和更广泛社区的老年人。该小组将每6个月与项目小组举行一次会议，讨论初步调查结果，委员会所有成员均可提出意见。该项目旨在将BAME社区个人的观点置于关于养老金保护的政策和公共辩论的核心。为此，在征得受访者的同意后，他们精选的照片将在温彻斯特艺术学院画廊和南安普敦的一个社区中心公开展出，并通过南安普顿市议会的公共图书馆网络进行广告宣传，这是南安普顿市‘文化之城2025’倡议的一部分。图片展还将用于联合王国东南部较小的中学生群体，以及南安普敦养老金领取者论坛和更广泛社区的青年、中年和老年男女，以促进不同年龄段之间关于为晚年生活做经济准备意味着什么的进一步讨论。最后，咨询委员会的成员还将应邀参加由该项目在伦敦组织、由国会议员组成的跨党派议会养老金小组在威斯敏斯特举办的最后传播讲习班。该项目旨在超越绘制养老金保护方面的种族差异的地图，并将来自BAME遗产的人置于本研究的中心，以便提供对为有经济保障的晚年生活做准备意味着什么的包容性和更全面的理解。

Later life is where individuals' experiences and resources from across the life course accumulate. For older individuals from particular Black and Minority Ethnic (BAME) communities, later life comes with a higher risk of having low financial resources and experiencing poverty compared to White British persons. However, our understanding of the differences in pensions and other types of savings between individuals from different BAME communities remains limited. We also don't know how individuals from such communities themselves understand financial planning for later life, and whether there are differences between men and women, and between younger and older persons. Through an innovative, mixed methods approach which involves statistical analysis of two national datasets (Understanding Society and Family Resources Survey) and qualitative interviews with mid-life and older persons from BAME communities, this project aims to address this gap by placing individuals from BAME communities at the heart of the investigation. Ahead of the interviews, respondents will be sent disposable cameras to take pictures which, for them, show what financial planning for later life means. These photos will form the centre of the interviews, allowing respondents to talk through their lived experiences and perspectives, and share insights which may not have been captured by academic research before. The project's ultimate goal is to offer new insights into pension protection and other forms of saving among individuals from BAME communities by inviting the perspectives of individuals from different age groups, and by combining different types of data and information in a manner which has not been done before.In addition to academic outputs in the form of journal articles, the project will host a number of non-academic engagement activities from the start. An Advisory Board made up of a user representative and local and national stakeholders in the area of pensions, such as the Southampton branch of AgeUK and the Southampton City Council's teams promoting 'Stronger Communities', community engagement, and better employment opportunities and skills across the population, and including older persons from BAME communities and the wider community, will be invited to discuss the aims of the research and how best to achieve them. This group will meet every 6 months with the project team, where preliminary findings will be discussed and all members of the Board can feed in their views. The project aims to place the perspectives of individuals from BAME communities at the heart of policy and public debates on pension protection. To that end, and with the respondents' permission, a selection of their photos will be exhibited in public at the Winchester School of Art Gallery, and in a Community Centre in Southampton and advertised through the Southampton City Council's Public Libraries network as part of Southampton's 'City of Culture 2025' initiative. The photo exhibition will also be used to engage with smaller groups of secondary school pupils in the South-east UK, and with young adult, mid-life and older women and men from the Southampton Pensioners Forum and the wider community, in order to facilitate further discussion among and between different age groups on what it means to financially prepare for later life. Finally, the members of the Advisory Board will also be invited to attend the final Dissemination Workshop organised by the project in London, and hosted by the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Pensions which is made up of Members of Parliament at Westminster. This project aims to move beyond the mapping of ethnic differences in pension protection, and to place persons from a BAME heritage at the centre of this research, in order to provide an inclusive and more holistic understanding of what it means to prepare for a financially secure later life.