Pension scheme membership is strongly associated with a number of characteristics of employees and their type of employment, as shown in Tables 6.4 to 6.11. The following discussion mainly focuses on membership of occupational pension schemes as this is the most common type of pension arrangement for employees.

In 2001, as in previous years, there were marked differences in the current pension arrangements of respondents in different occupational groups. From April 2001 the National Statistics Socio-economic Classification (NS-SEC) was introduced for all official statistics and surveys. It has replaced Social Class based on occupation and Socio-economic Groups (SEG). Because of small sample sizes when the results are shown separately for men and women working full or part time, the table shows only three broad categories of the NS-SEC.

Employees in professional or managerial occupations were more likely than those working either in intermediate occupations or in routine and manual occupations to belong to their current employer’s pension scheme. This variation reflected differences both in the likelihood that the current employer ran a pension scheme and in the likelihood that employees belonged to a scheme. For example:

• among women working full time, 73% of those in professional or managerial occupations belonged to an occupational pension scheme, compared with 58% of those in intermediate occupations and 33% in routine and manual occupations;
• for the same groups, the proportion of respondents who said that their current employer ran a pension scheme were 86%, 80% and 64% respectively.

In general, the higher their gross weekly income, the more likely men and women working full time were to belong either to their employer’s pension scheme or to a personal pension scheme. For example, in 2001 among those working full time:

• 73% of men and 80% of women with gross weekly earnings of more than £600 belonged to an occupational pension scheme compared with 20% of men and 26% of women earning between £100 and £200 per week;
• about three out of ten men (29%) and a quarter of women (23%) earning more than £600 belonged to a personal pension scheme compared with less than one in ten men and women earning between £100 and £200 per week.

The likelihood of belonging to the current employer’s pension scheme increased with the length of time respondents had worked for that employer. This variation reflected differences in whether the employer ran a pension scheme and whether the respondent was eligible. For example, among men working full time:

• about a quarter (27%) of male employees who had worked for their current employer for less than two years belonged to an occupational pension scheme compared with almost three quarters (73%) of those who had been with their employer for five years or more;

• for these two groups, the proportions who said that their employer ran a pension scheme were 60% and 82% respectively;
• one in seven (14%) men who had worked for their current employer for less than two years said that they were not eligible to belong to their employer's pension scheme compared with just 2% of those who had been with their employer for five years or more.

Membership of an occupational pension scheme was strongly associated with the size of the establishment in which the respondent worked, and again closely reflected whether the employer offered an occupational scheme. For example:

• among women working full time, the proportion belonging to their employer’s pension scheme ranged from 35% of those in establishments with 3-24 employees to 83% of those in establishments with 1000 or more employees;
• the proportion of respondents in these two groups who said that their employer ran an occupational scheme were 55% and 97% respectively.

There was wide variation in membership of occupational pension schemes between industry groups. The sample sizes of some groups are, however, small and the results for these industries should be treated with caution. For the years 1998, 2000 and 2001 combined:

• for men working full-time, occupational pension scheme membership ranged from 17% for those employed in agriculture, forestry and fishing to 78% among those working in public and personal services;
• the high level of pension scheme membership among employees in public and personal services was also seen for both full-time and part-time female employees (69% and 43%);
• the proportion of employees belonging to their employer’s pension scheme was generally below average for workers in the distribution and construction industries (36% in each industry for men working full time).