A spectre is haunting British millennials and Zoomers: the ghost of retirement future. According to a new survey from the Intergenerational Foundation, a striking 68% of Britons under 35 believe they will never own a home, and 54% doubt they will be able to retire at all. For Gen Z, born between 1997 and 2012, the anxieties are even sharper.
The social contract that promised a comfortable old age after a lifetime of work is fraying. The defined benefit pension, once a bedrock of British industry, is now a relic. In its place, we have defined contribution schemes, auto-enrolment, and a dizzying array of ISAs and SIPP wrappers.
But the fundamentals remain twisted: low wage growth, rising housing costs, and a state pension age that has been pushed to 67 and is likely to rise further. The Resolution Foundation warns that today's young workers are on track to be the first generation since the war to have lower average lifetime incomes than their parents. The system is not broken, it is designed for a different era.
We need a new settlement, one that acknowledges the gig economy, the death of final salary pensions, and the reality of insecure housing tenure. This is not just a financial crisis, it is a crisis of trust. If the young feel the future is mortgaged, they will vote, save, and work accordingly.
The ripples will touch everything from housing policy to the Labour Party's 'New Deal for Working People'. For now, we watch the pension anxiety index rise. The algorithm of social stability is throwing an error code.
