Household financial decision making: Qualitative research with couples

7
Introduction
• Whether communications could be tailored to communicate the benefits and counter negative 
messages around retirement planning, and take into account the dynamics of different decision-
making types.
• The possible implications for policy developments of the characteristics that are influencing the 
level and nature of retirement provision and, specifically, intended reliance on a spouse or partner 
during retirement.
• Whether and how couples would hold discussions about automatic enrolment. Automatic 
enrolment seeks to increase pension provision by requiring all employers to enrol employees aged 
22 to State Pension Age into a designated scheme, provided they earn above an annual salary 
threshold. Employees are free to opt out of the pension scheme. This research aims to contribute 
to the growing body of evidence on the likely impact of automatic enrolment, within the context 
of household financial decision making.
Section 1.4 details the research methodology used by our project team with these objectives
in mind.
1.4 
Project methodology
The data was collected through a programme of qualitative depth interviews. The methodology is 
described in detail in the following sections.
1.4.1 
Research design
The RS Consulting project team conducted face-to-face interviews with 24 couples. Interviews took 
place in couples’ homes, because participants were more likely to feel at ease and comfortable 
speaking openly about some potentially sensitive financial issues in this setting.
The interviews lasted approximately 90 minutes and were divided into three separate 30-minute 
sections: an interview with each partner individually followed by a ‘paired’ interview with both 
partners together as a unit. This allowed us to understand each partner’s views on their role in 
household financial decision making and attitudes towards retirement planning individually, as well 
as their joint outlook and perceptions. Using this approach, we gained detailed perspective on the 
decision-making process.
Interviews were conducted over a three-week period between 20 February and 9 March 2012 by the 
RS Consulting project team. 
This research was qualitative, and its findings should not, therefore, be generalized or extrapolated 
to the wider population. The couples who participated are discussed individually where their 
experiences or decision-making characteristics exemplify trends across all 24 couples, or where
they are particularly illustrative or interesting for another reason. 
All of the couples who took part in the research have been given pseudonyms and made 
anonymous in this report.