This report examines how material living standards - most commonly measured by households' incomes - have changed for different groups in the UK, and the consequences that these changes have for income inequality and for measures of deprivation and poverty. This is the 22nd annual report...

The accumulation (and "decumulation") of wealth is a process that has come increasingly under the spotlight in recent years. There is growing policy and societal interest in understanding when, how and why households are building up (and running down) wealth, how this differs between different...

This report describes patterns of financial help from family received by first-time buyers. We quantify the value of gifts and loans made, how they vary across different regions of the country and between those from different parental backgrounds, and shed light on their role in explaining...

This report is designed to provide new evidence on retirement patterns in the UK, as part of the Pensions Review, a larger project run by the IFS in partnership with the abrdn Financial Fairness Trust, which is examining the future of financial security in retirement. Understanding patterns of...

Why do the children of wealthy parents accumulate more wealth than children from poorer backgrounds? Does parental wealth have a role in determining young people's earnings, saving choices, returns to wealth and access to homeownership? How much wealth do parents give directly to their children?...

The tax system treats funds that remain in a pension at death extremely favourably. Where an individual dies before age 75, funds remaining in their pension escape income tax entirely - there was income tax relief when the money was paid into the pension and no income tax when the money is taken...

This report gives a new and up-to-date picture of the giving and receiving of significant intergenerational wealth transfers during life, summarising the findings of two research papers. New data from the Wealth and Assets Survey (WAS) allow us to build a comprehensive picture of the flow of...

Official data on the distribution of household incomes in the UK are available only with a significant lag: the latest statistics are for 2013-14. In this report, we use modelling techniques to provide a more up-to-date picture and to assess how things are likely to evolve in the coming years....