Connecting pensions, health and care

How can a joined-up approach to the old-age support systems ensure they are financially affordable and support well-being in later life?

Innovative and ambitious research from a multidisciplinary team at the University of Kent will investigate this question. It brings together economics, social policy, computer science and sociology, along with perspectives from policymakers, practitioners and those with lived experience.

Three systems work together to support older people: pensions, healthcare and social care. As the UK population ages, these systems are becoming even more important and the pressure on them is increasing. Almost 20% of the UK population is now aged 65 or over. Other social changes, such as people having fewer children and later, and living further from extended family, add more challenges.

A complex policy problem

Governments are always looking for policy solutions for each of the three old-age support systems, but rarely look at them together. The three systems are highly interdependent. Making changes to one system may cause problems in another.

For example:

• An increase in the pension age might make the pension system more sustainable – but create problems for the long-term care system. A lot of unpaid care is provided by retired people. Increasing the pension age will reduce the pool of unpaid carers, and unmet care needs put pressure on the NHS.
• Financing social care provision via taxing working age people might put financial pressure on younger people and families and increase intergenerational tensions.

How can pensions, health and care systems be made sustainable and offer intergenerational equity? This is a complex problem.

A multidisciplinary solution

This project will bring together academics and non-academics in a transdisciplinary approach to finding a solution. The research will also answer important questions including:

•  What are people’s preferences for support in later life? What are their attitudes towards key features of the support systems?
• How are the support systems linked through the combined effects of individual choices that people make at different stages of their lives?

The mixed-methods research will involve:

• Surveying the preferences and attitudes of the UK public
• Developing a unified conceptual framework for a holistic approach to old-age support
• Building a pilot overlapping generations (OLG) model to test different policy options and their effects on equity between and within generations.

Policy impact

The project will set the foundations for future research and policy design to look at the pensions, health and care systems together. It will help future work to identify policy options which are socially acceptable, politically palatable, financially sustainable and intergenerationally equitable.