Home > All articles Understanding why some employees don’t participate in employer pension schemes - UK In the Pensions White Paper published in 2006, tackling pensioner poverty was highlighted as one of the highest priorities for Government over the coming years. The paper built on previous research by the Pensions Commission and estimated that seven million working age people were currently undersaving for their retirement; the Commission‘s estimates were between 9.6 and 12 million working age people in the UK. Another study conducted by the Institute for Fiscal Studies in 20053 found that 23% of people aged between 50 years old and State Pension age (SPA) are undersaving. Following the 2007 Pensions Bill, which proposed that all qualifying employers should contribute a minimum of 3% of an employee’s salary into a workplace pension scheme and that they should automatically enrol all employees into this, the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) recognised the need to understand why some employees currently choose not to join their employer pension scheme and, hence, ascertain why employees might choose to opt out of a scheme that they were automatically enrolled into. Of particular importance is the need to understand whether or not non-participating employees who had not been automatically opted into a scheme had made a conscious and informed decision about joining. > Click to know more     By KS Date 30-03-2009 Print this article | React to this article