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While behavioural economists posit that 'present bias' influences adults' propensity to save, we know very little about the cultural frameworks and internalised rationalities that people apply in real life contexts when making pension choices. This paper investigates how people anticipate the future when they make decisions about workplace pensions, considering whether they think about later life at all; if so, how they conceptualise it; and how these views shape their saving behaviour. These are important questions in the UK where private pension saving is essential to provide for old age, yet an estimated 12 million people do not invest enough for income adequacy in later life. We investigate this issue through in-depth interviews with 42 full time employees aged between 20 and 50 years, working for three large employers - a privileged group facing relatively few structural barriers to saving. Later life was considered to be a distinct and uncertain phase in the long-term future, and thinking about it was uncomfortable. Most participants were unable to imagine what retirement might be like for them. People's thoughts about the future were disconnected from their pension saving decisions, even for those who were saving at higher levels. Instead people focussed on what they can afford in the present, prioritising stability and current standard of life over long-term saving; even the people who save do so because they feel they can afford to without jeopardising their standard of living. We expect that if those in our sample with their relative advantages did not connect their present pension actions to their long term futures, this disconnect may be amplified in less privileged and more precarious groups, who have many more demands on their immediate income and far more uncertain futures. We argue that what has previously been identified as an unconscious 'present bias' is instead a conscious and culturally constructed mechanism that embeds everyday structural privileges into long-term savings., (Crown Copyright © 2020. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Models of finance rationality expect individuals to actively prepare for retirement by consistently investing and building a diversified asset portfolio, with any behavior deviating from these expectations being identified as irresponsible. This framework of (ir)rationality and (ir)responsibility ignores the role of constraints in shaping financial behavior. Extending economic geographic insights on everyday financial practices as complex processes of meaning-making, we reveal how varied approaches to retirement savings are shaped by the experience of constraints inherent in a capitalist welfare state. Using the accounts of forty-two interviewed women and people with a minority ethnic background in the UK, we show how the interplay between everyday rationalities and structural constraints construct variegated financial subjectivities and practices that reflect the context that individuals face. Our findings contribute to the theorization of variegated financial subjects and disrupt the application of corrective policy measures, such as financial education, which put more pressure on individuals rather than tackling the inequalities inherent in the capitalist welfare state broadly and in the pension system specifically. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This work contributes to the political economy literature by elucidating gendered socio-cultural practices germane to everyday financialisation. The financialisation of retirement provision in the UK expects individuals to negotiate risk and reward across diverse investments. Existing quantitative research highlights gender disparities in terms of who saves and how much, often interpreted as inherent behavioural traits which cast female behaviour as irrational. Yet, this ignores the dominance of masculine norms in shaping financial capitalism and the impact of gender-normative roles on everyday behaviours. Building on insights feminist political economy, this paper examines how constructions of gender, meaning socialised gender roles and norms, shape the ways men and women deal with financial risk when accumulating assets for later life. Drawing on 105 semi-structured interviews, we find that men and women understand and respond to risk in different and contradictory ways based on constructions of gender. These distinct approaches lead to divergent investment strategies: men tend to align with the gendered role of the risk-seeking investor, while women tend to feel alienated by models of investment which do not appear to fit feminine norms. This disparity compounds the effect of structural inequalities with implications for long-term welfare under financialisation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bringing together insights from feminist political economy and everyday financialization, this paper explores the complex nature of women's pension decisions. Women in the UK experience structural constraints originating from a pension system which ignores socially reproductive activities, and they face limitations in pension planning due to prevalent gender norms. Both aspects have a significant impact on women's long-term financial wellbeing and yet little attention has been paid to how they operate within these constraints, ultimately leading to women's behaviors being construed as passive or irrational. Drawing on 61 interviews, our paper conceptualizes pension practices adopted by women through gendered finance rationality, defined as variegated financial practices shaped by the gendered context in which they arise. Rather than being irrational or passive victims of an unequal welfare system, women actively engage with the limitations of the pension system and seek out asset strategies which seem more suited to their life trajectories, but implicitly reinforce gendered wealth inequalities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the UK, individuals are increasingly responsible for achieving an adequate retirement income, yet many people are not saving enough for later life. While we understand some of the structures that lead to differential pensions, we know very little about how people make decisions about their workplace pensions. This is a crucial question as an increasingly financialised landscape means that individuals must make financial decisions about whether to save, how much to save, whether and when to change investments. In this paper, I show that individual approaches to pension provision are not simply determined by structuring variables but are socially and culturally embedded, using qualitative interviews with purposively selected employees from three large private sector organisations. I propose a typology of four approaches to pension decision-making that connect to social and cultural meanings of everyday life, such as life status, identity and relationships. This typology challenges the economic models of rational decision-making that have been used to justify financialisation and highlights the need for later life provision which does not predominantly rely on individuals ability to save, taking into account social and cultural variations in financial behaviours as well as the inherent structural inequalities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]