People from disadvantaged groups have been failed by a pensions system "built for stable lives", research by Daniela Silcock Pensions Research (DSPR) and Ignition House has found.

The research examined how disadvantages added up over people’s lives and affected retirement outcomes.

The report said factors such as ethnicity, gender, disability and socio-economic background influenced how people were treated in labour markets and by policymakers, with some groups more likely to face low pay, insecure work, caring responsibilities and ill health.

The analysis found that people with multiple high-risk characteristics were more likely to experience adverse outcomes.

Without stable jobs, reliable income, or the ability to save regularly, some people fell short of the savings needed for an adequate retirement.

Data from the Standard Life Centre for the Future of Retirement indicated that among those aged 60-65, 58 per cent of people from minority ethnic backgrounds, 50 per cent of disabled people, and 47 per cent of unpaid carers had no private pension savings, compared with 35 per cent overall.

The research – supported by the Standard Life Centre for the Future of Retirement, Pensions UK, NEST, the Centre for Ageing Better, and Age UK – collected evidence on life stages, characteristics and outcomes, from multiple data sources and interviews.

Standard Life Centre for the Future of Retirement director, Catherine Foot, said the research showed that saving into a pension was “far from an equal journey”.

“Life doesn’t follow a straight path,” she warned, “and how people work, earn and care over a lifetime looks very different from the assumptions baked into our pension system.

"As jobs, earnings and caring responsibilities change, our pension system needs to catch up with the realities people face, or more will reach retirement without enough to live on.”

According to the report, the pensions industry should respond by making pension saving work for people with changing jobs, hours and incomes, and by making it easier to participate in a pension scheme.

It also called on the government to check that pensions policy could cope with change and that rules on eligibility and contribution rates worked for people with uneven incomes or time out of employment.

“Stress testing profiles with higher exposure to structural barriers can help identify where systems exclude those most in need,” argued DSPR director, Daniela Silcock.

″Embedding this approach in policy design would help ensure the system works for a wider range of lives, not just those with stable work patterns.”

Pensions UK deputy director for strategic policy and research, Matthew Blakstad, added: “This study shows why it’s important the Pensions Commission takes into account a pensions framework that reflects the diversity and reality of modern working lives and better protects people when their earnings are disrupted, so that time spent out of the workforce or in insecure work does not translate into permanently poorer retirement outcomes.”

The Pensions Commission was relaunched in 2025 to improve retirement outcomes.

Its interim report is expected in the spring.

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