Understanding the challenges of saving for retirement through our new research initiative

id

Standard Life has entered a Joint Research Initiative with the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), which will form a part of its new thought leadership programme - Thinking Forward.

id

 

Funded by Standard Life, the three-year programme enables a team of OECD researchers and policy experts to explore two of the major challenges facing not just our customers but savers in the UK and across the world:

 

Retirement income

Many countries around Europe, South America and Australia are adopting different approaches to retirement income policy and promoting longer working lives.

The retirement income research that the OECD will conduct will examine the challenges in achieving financial security in retirement. The OECD will investigate what innovation is going on around the world to help improve certainty of income and reduce the possibility of running out of money with consideration to the varying and changing needs that people have in retirement. It will assess for example the role of housing as an asset within solution design and different forms of pooling structures for example Collective Defined Contribution (CDC). 

 

Diversity, equity and inclusion

The diversity, equity and inclusion research that the OECD will progress begins initially with the data from the consumer attitudes survey ‘Bringing retirement into focus: 2021’ where we surveyed nearly 5000 people across five generations. We found some interesting themes, but we wanted to validate these against other research that exists. The OECD will use data and insights to deepen the focus on specific individual characteristics that may influence their attitudes, decisions and feelings about retirement saving namely gender, culture and ethnicity, and socio-economic background.

 

Thinking Forward to build good practice and innovation in the long-term savings and pensions market

We want to make financial security in retirement achievable, more widespread, and generally fairer. It’s how we believe we can stay relevant and better support the long-term, diverse needs and wants of savers - helping our clients and their advisers with this too.

The challenges we're discussing are not new. They're faced by many savers across the world. Many providers have tried to solve this alone. But we don’t believe we can. Which is why we wanted to collaborate with an international organisation and bring a global lens to the challenges we're trying to address.

 

Working together for a better tomorrow

The OECD’s combination of international reach and pensions expertise is unrivalled, and we’re excited to embark on this project with them.

 The OECD’s success is down to their ability to bring stakeholders together, to get a better understanding of the issues and challenges, and as a result, help to suggest better ways of addressing them.

By working together, Standard Life and the OECD feel confident that the Thinking Forward research will help to improve solutions and support those saving for and in retirement, not just in the UK but worldwide.

 

Learn more about Thinking Forward and the OECD

Watch videos

•  An Introduction to thinking forward - Sangita Chawla (1 minute)
•  Introducing our joint research initiative with the OECD - Sangita Chawla and Pablo Antolin (2 minutes)
•  Who are the OECD? - Pablo Antolin (4 minutes)
•  Thinking globally but acting locally - full webinar recording (58 minutes)

 

Read reports from the OECD

• Recommendation for the good design of DC Pension plans
• Towards improved retirement savings outcomes for women
• Pensions Outlook 2020 highlights
• Pensions at a Glance 2019