Promoting inclusivity in pension protection and saving among men and women from black and minority ethnic communities in the UK: a mixed methods study

Later life is where individuals' experiences and resources from across the life course accumulate. For older individuals from particular Black and Minority Ethnic (BAME) communities, later life comes with a higher risk of having low financial resources and experiencing poverty compared to White British persons. However, our understanding of the differences in pensions and other types of savings between individuals from different BAME communities remains limited. We also don't know how individuals from such communities themselves understand financial planning for later life, and whether there are differences between men and women, and between younger and older persons. Through an innovative, mixed methods approach which involves statistical analysis of two national datasets (Understanding Society and Family Resources Survey) and qualitative interviews with mid-life and older persons from BAME communities, this project aims to address this gap by placing individuals from BAME communities at the heart of the investigation. Ahead of the interviews, respondents will be sent disposable cameras to take pictures which, for them, show what financial planning for later life means. These photos will form the centre of the interviews, allowing respondents to talk through their lived experiences and perspectives, and share insights which may not have been captured by academic research before. The project's ultimate goal is to offer new insights into pension protection and other forms of saving among individuals from BAME communities by inviting the perspectives of individuals from different age groups, and by combining different types of data and information in a manner which has not been done before.

In addition to academic outputs in the form of journal articles, the project will host a number of non-academic engagement activities from the start. An Advisory Board made up of a user representative and local and national stakeholders in the area of pensions, such as the Southampton branch of AgeUK and the Southampton City Council's teams promoting 'Stronger Communities', community engagement, and better employment opportunities and skills across the population, and including older persons from BAME communities and the wider community, will be invited to discuss the aims of the research and how best to achieve them. This group will meet every 6 months with the project team, where preliminary findings will be discussed and all members of the Board can feed in their views. The project aims to place the perspectives of individuals from BAME communities at the heart of policy and public debates on pension protection. To that end, and with the respondents' permission, a selection of their photos will be exhibited in public at the Winchester School of Art Gallery, and in a Community Centre in Southampton and advertised through the Southampton City Council's Public Libraries network as part of Southampton's 'City of Culture 2025' initiative. The photo exhibition will also be used to engage with smaller groups of secondary school pupils in the South-east UK, and with young adult, mid-life and older women and men from the Southampton Pensioners Forum and the wider community, in order to facilitate further discussion among and between different age groups on what it means to financially prepare for later life. Finally, the members of the Advisory Board will also be invited to attend the final Dissemination Workshop organised by the project in London, and hosted by the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Pensions which is made up of Members of Parliament at Westminster.

This project aims to move beyond the mapping of ethnic differences in pension protection, and to place persons from a BAME heritage at the centre of this research, in order to provide an inclusive and more holistic understanding of what it means to prepare for a financially secure later life.