Money and Finance in Later Life

Abstract

In many countries, the context of financialisation means that financial tools, markets and institutions are increasingly influential across social, political and economic landscapes. As a consequence, individuals are cast as ‘everyday investors’, who actively manage income and wealth in order to provide for later life, creating new social and cultural norms and expectations over the life course. This chapter examines the ways in which people approaching and during later life deal with money and finance, drawing primarily on data from the UK where financialisation is advanced, to understand how this impacts the experiences of these life stages and assess what this means for societal inequalities more broadly.