October 2025

IZA DP No. 18164: Trading Pay for Pensions: Evidence from a Discrete Choice Experiment in the United Kingdom

Nick Deschacht, Inés Guillemyn, Suncica Vujic

This study estimates individuals’ willingness to pay for pension benefits using a discrete choice experiment with fictitious job advertisements conducted among workers in the United Kingdom (UK). The results indicate that workers are willing to trade off current pay for additional pension benefits, with the marginal worker willing to forgo 0.3% of their current wage for a one percentage point increase in pension benefits. Willingness to pay varies significantly across individuals, increasing with proximity to retirement age, higher income levels, financial planning and financial literacy.