Briefing Notes

Briefing Note 84 - How do female lifecourses affect retirement?

This Briefing Note examines the influence of various lifecourses on income in retirement. The primary focus of this note is to consider how women’s retirement income is affected by motherhood. This includes the impact of taking time out of work to care for children, as well as the implications of the Motherhood Penalty, which is the observation that mothers tend to have reduced incomes relative to women without children. 

The Wellbeing, Health, Retirement and the Lifecourse project (WHERL)

WHERL is a research project investigating ageing, work and health across the lifecourse. This 3 year interdisciplinary consortium is funded by the cross-research council Lifelong Health and Wellbeing (LLHW) programme under the Extending Working Lives initiative. It examines a crucial question for ageing societies: how inequalities across the lifecourse relate to paid work in later life in the UK.

The project builds on an existing UK-Canadian collaboration examining lifecourse influences on later life work trajectories across several European countries and the US. In addition to those at the Institute of Gerontology at King’s College London, the consortium brings together a unique interdisciplinary team involving universities and partner organisations including the Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto; Research Department of Epidemiology and Public Health, University College London; Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience also at King’s College London; Manchester University; Pensions Policy Institute; Age UK; and the Department for Work and Pensions.