Four Financing later life: pensions, care, housing equity and the new politics of old age
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Debora Price
Abstract
In Chapter Four, Deborah Price and Lynne Livsey examine ‘the politics of old age’ in the contemporary UK setting. In particular, they analyse recent developments in the financing of later life, principally through changes in pensions and long-term care. Along the way, they also deal with associated challenges for older citizens, including the management of income, assets and savings in the context of competitive or quasi-competitive service regimes. These programmes, Price and Livsey argue, require older people to have made what can be conceived as the ‘right’ financial decisions ‘for the whole of their adult lives’. In this way, individuals are constructed by government as ‘malleable subjects’ who can be ‘nudged’ into ‘becom[ing] financially capable, fiscally competent, actuarially aware subjects’. The authors contend that new social inequalities can emerge through amended risk and reward mechanisms.
Abstract
In Chapter Four, Deborah Price and Lynne Livsey examine ‘the politics of old age’ in the contemporary UK setting. In particular, they analyse recent developments in the financing of later life, principally through changes in pensions and long-term care. Along the way, they also deal with associated challenges for older citizens, including the management of income, assets and savings in the context of competitive or quasi-competitive service regimes. These programmes, Price and Livsey argue, require older people to have made what can be conceived as the ‘right’ financial decisions ‘for the whole of their adult lives’. In this way, individuals are constructed by government as ‘malleable subjects’ who can be ‘nudged’ into ‘becom[ing] financially capable, fiscally competent, actuarially aware subjects’. The authors contend that new social inequalities can emerge through amended risk and reward mechanisms.
Chapters in this book
- Front Matter i
- Contents iii
- Notes on contributors v
- Introduction xi
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Contemporary debates and developments in the UK
- Introducing Universal Credit 3
- Reconciling fuel poverty and climate change policy under the Coalition government: Green Deal or no deal? 23
- Doctors in the driving seat? Reforms in NHS primary care and commissioning 47
- Financing later life: pensions, care, housing equity and the new politics of old age 67
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Contributions from the Social Policy Association/East Asian Social Policy Research Network Conference of 2012
- It’s time to move on from ‘race’? The official ‘invisibilisation’ of minority ethnic disadvantage 93
- Corporations as political actors: new perspectives for health policy research 113
- Square pegs and round holes: extending existing typologies fails to capture the complexities of Chinese social policy 129
- The Earned Income Tax Credit as an anti-poverty programme: palliative or cure? 149
- Social policy and culture: the cases of Japan and South Korea 167
- Load-shedding and reloading: changes in government responsibility – the case of Israeli immigration and integration policy 2004–10 183
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Themed section: work, employment and insecurity
- ‘What unemployment means’ three decades and two recessions later 207
- Precarious employment and EU employment regulation 227
- How do activation policies affect social citizenship? The issue of autonomy 249
- Modernising social security for lone parents: avoiding fertility and unemployment traps when reforming social policy in Northern Europe 271
- Women, families and the ‘Great Recession’ in the UK 293
- Index 315
Chapters in this book
- Front Matter i
- Contents iii
- Notes on contributors v
- Introduction xi
-
Contemporary debates and developments in the UK
- Introducing Universal Credit 3
- Reconciling fuel poverty and climate change policy under the Coalition government: Green Deal or no deal? 23
- Doctors in the driving seat? Reforms in NHS primary care and commissioning 47
- Financing later life: pensions, care, housing equity and the new politics of old age 67
-
Contributions from the Social Policy Association/East Asian Social Policy Research Network Conference of 2012
- It’s time to move on from ‘race’? The official ‘invisibilisation’ of minority ethnic disadvantage 93
- Corporations as political actors: new perspectives for health policy research 113
- Square pegs and round holes: extending existing typologies fails to capture the complexities of Chinese social policy 129
- The Earned Income Tax Credit as an anti-poverty programme: palliative or cure? 149
- Social policy and culture: the cases of Japan and South Korea 167
- Load-shedding and reloading: changes in government responsibility – the case of Israeli immigration and integration policy 2004–10 183
-
Themed section: work, employment and insecurity
- ‘What unemployment means’ three decades and two recessions later 207
- Precarious employment and EU employment regulation 227
- How do activation policies affect social citizenship? The issue of autonomy 249
- Modernising social security for lone parents: avoiding fertility and unemployment traps when reforming social policy in Northern Europe 271
- Women, families and the ‘Great Recession’ in the UK 293
- Index 315
