There were marked differences in the proportions of respondents from different socio-economic groups who currently either belonged to their employer’s occupational pension scheme or had personal pension arrangements. In order to provide sufficient data for analysis, information for three years (1996, 1998, 2000) has been combined.

In the years 1996,1998 and 2000:

• among full time employees, about three-quarters (76%) of professional men and 71% of professional women belonged to their current employer’s pension scheme, compared with 34% of men and 27% of women in unskilled manual occupations
• among men working full time, the highest proportions with a personal pension scheme were employers and managers (32%), professionals (27%) and skilled manual workers (27%) compared with 15 to 20% of those in other occupations
• among women working full time, those in professional, employer and managerial occupations were about twice as likely as those in unskilled manual occupations (19 to 20% compared with 10%) to belong to a personal pension scheme
• among women in part time work, about half (51%) of all those in professional occupations and a similar proportion (52%) of those in intermediate non manual occupations were members of their employer’s pension scheme compared with 15% of unskilled manual workers
• professional women in part time work were nearly eight times as likely as women in unskilled manual part time jobs to belong to a personal pension scheme (23% compared with 3%).