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The first round of auto-enrolment into a workplace pension starts today. First proposed by the 2005 Turner Commission report, auto enrolment is intended to help the half of employees who have no supplementary pension to save more for retirement. The rollout has attracted considerable media attention, much of it concentrating upon whether small savers will really benefit and how far the government is prepared to go with its proposal to develop a basic pension that is sufficiently high that such small savings are not means-tested away. IER’s Bernard Casey has recently published a paper on this subject - Voluntary Pension Saving for Old Age: Are the Objectives of Self-responsibility and Security Compatible?. The paper drew comparisons with Germany where policymakers are facing similar challenges ( - full content only available to subscribers).

In the next podcast about our work at the Institute for Employment Research, Bernard Casey talks about his research on older workers and the effects of working longer on health and well-being. Bernard also considers how employment, pensions and social cares systems interrelate, together with the effect of working longer on people’s physical and mental health.

Bernard Casey made presentations at two recent events on issues relating to the employment of older people.

The first, entitled “The Employment of Older People in a Period of Stagnation and Deregulation” was prepared together with Atsuhiro Yamada from the Department of Economics at Keio University, and delivered at the latest ESRC (University of Kent, 4 May). The presentation focused on older people’s employment in Japan over the past twenty years, looking at changing economic circumstances since the end of the bubble economy and the coming to retirement age of the post war baby-boomers. A copy of the presentation can be downloaded from here.

The second was a presentation on “Working Beyond Retirement: explaining a UK phenomenon” at the (Brussels, 23 May). Under the title "Active and Healthy Ageing and Solidarity between Generations - the role of social insurances", the event aimed to clarify the role of the social insurance in addressing the challenges and opportunities of societal ageing. Copies of the slides can be downloaded from here.

In the fifth of a series of podcasts about our work at the Institute for Employment Research, Professor Jenny Bimrose tells us about some of the findings of her international study of older workers, in particular she focuses on the career development of older women and the role of careers guidance.

This week IER welcomes Professor Philip Taylor as a Visiting Fellow.

Professor Taylor is Director, Research and Graduate Studies at Monash University, Australia. During his visit he will give a seminar entitled Workability in Australia on Wednesday 16 November, which is to be held at 11:30 in B0.45 Social Science building.