Income mobility in later life

Most existing analyses of the incomes of the older population have overlooked the dynamics of later life or the process of ageing itself. Yet, income dynamics post-retirement is of growing policy importance as a result both of increasing longevity and, in the British case, a change in the sources of pensioner incomes. Our paper contributes to the growing and new literature on income mobility, focusing exclusively on a relatively under examined period of life: old age. The paper discusses alternative ways of conceptualising mobility, each of which leads to quite a distinct numerical measure of income mobility amongst British pensioners during the period 1991-1997. The paper also investigates the variation in the experience of income mobility across different subgroups of the older population. Finally, the different components of the income package of the older population are examined to see how much they contribute to the longitudinal variability of total income.