Since July 1988, employees have been given the choice of starting their own personal pension plan in place of SERPS. The Department of Work and Pensions (formerly DSS) then pays part of the National Insurance contribution into the personal pension plan. As a result of this change in the rules, the time series shown in Table 6.3 is not strictly comparable from 1989 with previous years.

Since 1989:

• the proportion of men working full time who were in an employer’s pension scheme decreased from 64% in 1989 to 54% in 2000, reflecting the decline (from 79% in 1989 to 70% in 2000) in the proportion of employees who were offered a pension scheme by their employer
• the proportion of female employees working full time who were offered a pension scheme by their employer has not changed significantly since 1989 (76% in 1989, 75% in 2000) but the proportion who were members of a scheme has shown a slight increase (55% in 1989, 58% in 2000)
• the proportion of women in part time work who were offered a pension scheme by their employer increased slightly from 52% in 1989 to 56% in 2000 membership of an employer’s pension scheme doubled from 15% in 1989 to 31% in 2000. The proportion of women in part time work who did not know whether their employer had a scheme decreased from 7% in 1989 to 2% in 2000.