Who’s going to pay our pensions in 20-30years if the UK keeps its birth rate low and also restricts immigration?

Can I assume you’ve never worked for the Civil Service? I’m on £47k and I put in under £200pcm and they put in around £650pcm 👍

Edited to add- I think that’s why all the Daily Mail readers hate us 😂

You are not wrong. With UC there could be a charge against the house, and the UC could be repaid once the person gets on their feet. Zero interest.

Yes and in the past I’m sure elderly relatives have also come and not contributed

And they don't. My mother will likely go into care soon and I fully expect a charge to be put on the house and I think that's fair.
I'll get nothing but that's the way the cookie crumbles.

I think a lot of us are discussing how much we might need if the state pension reduces in value or is means tested or is raised to 75 or removed entirely, rather than what we need if the state pension continues roughly in its current form.

A lot of the pension advice when I started working 30 years ago was still based on your private pension being in addition to the state pension which is why its hard to remove. People planned accordingly. There wasnt auto enrolment, lots of lower earners weren't even offered access to company schemes etc.

I guess people are thinking of saying to an 18 year old plan as if you need to fund the entire lot yourself.

Imagine your scenario without 2 state pension.

The majority of people don’t WANT to have lots of children

I agree though more children are wanted than born in UK currently -- for every 2 kids born another is currently wanted, usually by exiting parents and they often cite money as a limiting factor.

However as time goes on and family sizes continue to decrease and having fewer kids per parent becomes the norm - then that will continue to decline - it's why China relaxing the rules had little effect - partly cost of living partly social norm is now one child.

I don't think pre-natal policies have ever got up to replacement levels anywhere but they mean the decline in numbers are slower - so population still goes down but at a less quick pace so more time to adapt. It's similar to immigration in that way - immigrate rapdily decrease number of kids they have and also age - but we get tax while they work there are a short term stop gap.

The problem there is a point reached where having more kids is a burden population can't accomodate because the older depenents are too much already. Plus as most of the voting population is past child bearing age or wants to be child free - actually getting any support though for parents gets increaingly hard leading to lower birth rates.

If more people decide they are happy not having kids that works out - but if more people want them but feel they can't have them that stokes resentment in large sections of voting population - and may cause emigration if other countries look better losing us more skills.

So there a limited time to act to increase birth rates- and frankly I see no poltical will to do so. So we'll all have to get used to work longer and be poorer, getting tax more but with declining services and get used to immigration proping up population numbers - so more of the same.

That’s generally the case for defined benefit pensions, but not defined contribution workplace pensions (which most non-public sector workplace pensions are) - defined contribution can normally be left to whoever you want.

(Yes, I am simplifying here before anyone challenges me!)

Yes, we will have enough savings by retirement for any house emergencies, and will likely inherit a little, even after care home fees, so our priority is just retiring as soon as we can, and continuing to save in our pensions while retired, which people forget they can do, money still grows in drawdown.
I do think in the future those with massive private pensions might not get a state pension.

Agreed. Well off people have been using DC pension pots as IHT avoidance. Pensions savings are there to fund your retirement, not to hoard money for your children to inherit. Ther

Also you get generous tax breaks for putting money in to pensions, it is an anomoly they have been exempt from IHT. It closes a loophole

I’m pretty sure that workplace pensions only go to your spouse? Or dependent children up to certain age? Sadly, a colleague of mine died quite suddenly about a year after retiring & her spouse only lived a year or so longer. So her NHS pension would have paid out very little. Her family don’t inherit her pension. So I think if you have a large private pension IHT should be payable!

I agree
People really don’t need that much. Our children have left home now and based on how much we currently spend ( that includes work travel and clothes ) we would only need £10k over the state pension and our house is quite expensive to keep.

Inequality will continue to increase, and the beneficiaries and architects of that will find someone else to blame for people getting poorer.

And people will believe them.

Maybe I'm just more frugal than most, but you don't really need a huge pension pot as long as your mortgage is paid off at retirement.
My dc pot should be around 100k when I plan to retire at 60, that will last until I am 67, with a bit left if I keep it invested.(my dh will have his state pension before me, so that will help)
Then at 67 we can manage on our state pensions and a bit of savings.
This will pay for one car, and a few breaks away each year.

The majority of people don’t WANT to have lots of children. Reliable contraception is the main reason why most families have only a few children nowadays. People in the past probably didn’t want to have 6+ DC, they had little choice. Obviously cost is a huge part of the reason but it’s not the only one.

Lots of people have lost private pension pots with a crash. Govn pensions are safeguarded by the taxpayer but not private
That’s why investment in rentals became a thing. More long term saving for a pension than relying on rental money
That's what we did after one pension was lost completely.

@Meadowfinch lets not also forget people these days ( unlike yours and mine) have to pay back student loans.
That bites into a take home salary and impacts on pension payments

I do think some people worry about the security of pensions too! In the past there have been companies who have misappropriated pension funds or collapsed with no money to pay pensions etc though obv we now the PPA to protect us.
But if your private pension is invested in the stock market what happens if there is a crash/ Liz Truss situation neat the time you plan to retire? Would you lose a lot of your pension? I genuinely don’t know! I’m in the NHS pension so not directly affected. The average working class Brit is not particularly financially literate. Many probably worry about losing the small amount of savings they might have scrimped to save over the years.

They'll have people work longer past current retiment ages - think there is legistalation that can push it with no extra votes to 70 currently - some will keep there jobs if they have needed skills - other will have to do lower probably p/t time work in retail/cleaning and care -( the hard graft low paid stuff) and others will get disablity top up payments.

So think it will be a mix of some state pension, some inheritace from mostly housing though image taxing that more will also come - some p/t work for longer as happens in USA - and a reduction in living standards for retired people. There may be some more extended family living happening - but given culture in UK and house size may not happen.

I also think we'll continue to import workers - as that most of the projected population increase - and that does impact on birth rate as it increases competion for scare resouces like housing.

I think the state will continue to decline with ever increasing push to put more risk on individuals with private pensions, medical care costs, and elder care whil increaisng the tax burden and then wonder why the working population is stress in poor health and very unhappy.

If MN posters held sway it would be euthaise people soon as they stop working and start needing signiifcant health care - but it won't affect current pensioners that will affect next couple of generations ie most posters on here.

Immigration doesn’t solve the problem, as eventually those immigrants become pensioners themselves, so we would have to bring in more immigrants, and on and on, it’s not sustainable. That’s also presuming that all of the immigrants are economic contributors and none of them are stay at home parents, disabled, unemployed etc.

Agree @duvetsmuvet
im amazed by this sweeping comment too.
It’s no wonder once people sit down with a calculator they decide they can’t afford kids if the expectation for a reasonable retirement is this sum every month.
Its simply out of reach for most people

The same could be said though of anyone working if they had equity in property and applied for Universal credit
If that equity is taken into account most wouldnt get UC ( given the deposits required to buy they’d already be over the allowance )

I think more people will work part time past 65 in future. If you are lucky enough to have property with a mortgage paid off, your costs are down. A 3 day a week job at minimum wage would currently earn you just over £1k per month to top up a low private pension to a much more comfortable level. I fully expect to need to do this, assuming I live long enough and am not too disabled. I have been contributing to a pension since I was 25, but it is a defined contribution one, so not nearly as generous as times gone by. We simply have to do the best we can with what we have.

Neither is taking away a state pension that people have been led to believe they are entitled to by paying 40 years plus of national insurance. Smaller more densely populated housing? Euthanasia?
Just change the immigration policy to net taxpayers only and the problem will go away after 20 years,

There’s a mentality I see all the time with regard to pension crefits/state funded care etc. Resentment that ‘I worked hard for 40 yrs but Mrs Notalot was SAHM/ unemployed & she gets pension credit. It’s not fair ‘ It actually stops some people providing for themselves. Less reliance on the state & worrying about what others might get would help the country. I’m making sure my YA DC start a pension as soon as they are earning!

Full time working people with no children on minimum wage do not get any Universal credit.
With 35hours/week they would be be earning too much.