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Pension membership and contributions fall, ONS
Long-term trend of falling pension in-payments is outpaced by the increasing number of plans paying their members, according to new data.
The total number of pension plans receiving payment has continued to decline while the number of those paying out has risen by two million in the last 20 years, according to new data produced by the Office for National Statistics.
In its Occupational Pension Schemes Annual Report 2010, ONS categorised scheme members into three groups: active members that are still contributing to their schemes, pensioner members who are receiving payments and former employees who neither contribute nor receive payments.
While the number of active members has fallen from 10.7m in 1991 to 8.3m in 2010, the number of overall pensioner members has grown from 7m to 9m in the same period.
The number of plans that are not receiving payments but not yet paying out more than doubled from 4.5m to 9.8m from 1991 to 2010.
Active membership of private sector defined benefit schemes fell from 3m in 2006 to 2.1m in 2010, while active membership of private sector defined contribution schemes remained stable at about 1m.
Total membership of occupational pension schemes in the UK in 2010 was an estimated 27.2m, 500,000 down from 2009. Of the 2010 total, 12.5m were in public sector schemes and 14.7m were in private sector schemes.
The estimated number of pensions in payment was nine million and the number of preserved pension entitlements was 9.8m.
