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When the current Third Age were in their mid-life course and nearing retirement societal changes began to occur which indicated the ‘arrival’ of the second modemity. Some changes to money management processes provide illustrations of certain aspects of the second

modemity as seen by both Beck and Giddens.

In the second modemity the nature of change is such that the state and collective organisations tend to have a diminished influence on mitigating attendant risks. The

the change but modify or lessen its impact by insuring or organising against any associated personal risks. This is the process which Beck calls ‘individualisation’.

Beck sees individualization as the outcome of modernization processes

involving a reduction in the influence of the traditional structuring institutions of society in the formation of personal identity. Such factors as mass

education, improvements in living standards, the second wave feminist movement and changes in the labour market have contributed to the trend towards individualization. (Lupton 1999: 69)

Mythen (2004) also notes how Beck emphasises the need for the individual to continually make decisions as a consequence of the influence of second modemity.

Beck is particularly keen to accentuate the degree of personal choice involved in the constmction of life biographies. The comprehensive spread of

individualisation means that personal decision making becomes an inescapable aspect of contemporary life: ...As individuals become untied from the

certainties of collective stmctures, everyday life becomes contingent on an infinite process of decision making. (Mythen 2004:118)

There are a number of examples of systemic change related to household money management which promoted individual choice and decision making as a basic business principle. The introduction of market forces from the 1970s onwards ensured that individual choice became a key component of the domestic economy with the promotion of credit as the preferred means of purchase for increasing individual consumption. The use of digital

technology by the financial industry for practical money management purposes included a number of fondamental changes in financial practice. Greater emphasis was placed on individual customer participation which required complex decision making by the individual (Ritzer 2006).

Examples of money management processes which were affected by the differing economic and political influences prevailing in modemity 1 and modemity 2 are provided by pension fonds. It was noted in Chapter 2 (Section 2.4.4.iv). that post World War 2 employers were encouraged by govemment to introduce direct benefit (DB) occupational pension schemes for managers and professionals as an addition to the state pension scheme (Gilleard and Higgs 2005:46). The intention was to provide an income for retired employees which would accumulate from contributions by individuals and employers over 40 years and be activated when the employee retired. Contributions and the accompanying lump sum were tax free as the govemment’s contribution.

The DB pension scheme was devised using modemity one principles and was intended to overcome the risk, for the individual, of penury in old age. It appears to possess

the characteristics of a ‘disembedding mechanism’ which Lupton (1999) considers as an important aspect of Giddens’ view of modemity.

For Giddens the key features of modemity are institutional and individual reflexivity combined with the reorganisation of time and space and the expansion of disembedding mechanisms, or mechanisms which take social relations out of their specific time/space contexts and apply them in wider locales. ( Lupton 1999:73)

The disembedding mechanism requires a ‘symbolic token’ and ‘expert systems’ in order to operate. Giddens considers money as an important example of a symbolic token.

.... money economy becomes vastly more sophisticated and abstract with the emergence and maturation of modemity. Money brackets time (because it is a means of credit) and space since standardised value allows transactions between a multiplicity of individuals who never physically meet one another. Expert systems bracket time and space through deploying modes of technical knowledge which have validity independent of the practitioners and clients

who make use of them. (Giddens 1991:18)

Lupton (1999:77) notes that Giddens, when discussing risk in late modemity also introduces the concept of trust which he feels is essential when individuals need to rely on expert systems and symbolic tokens.

Tmst, therefore, may be regarded as a means of dealing

psychologically with risks that would otherwise paralyse action or

lead to feelings of engulfment, dread and anxiety. Without tmst people could not engage in the 'leap of faith' that is required of them in dealing with these expert knowledge systems of which they themselves have little understanding or technical knowledge because they have not been trained in them.

(Lupton 1999:78) A DB occupational pension fund, as an 'expert system', is a means of collecting and

protecting money, a 'symbolic token', compulsorily contributed by individuals and employers over a long period of time (usually 40 years) and releasing it at an agreed moment in the individual's life course (e.g. retirement from paid employment). The pension fund requires complex financial expertise to manage and control it but does not depend on the presence of the individual contributor. The investment stmcture of the DB pension fund is able to use the global economy to increase the value of the individual's contributions to the fund over time and space and as an expert system is able to minimise the risk of global investment for the individual. Substantial tmst is placed in the system in that it will provide the promised payments at the right time and will continue to do so throughout the future life course of the

individual. Thus through the disembedding mechanism the DB occupational pension, devised in modemity one, can achieve the aim of its originators which was to provide the individual with a financially sound means of averting the risk of penury in later life.

In contrast the defined contribution pension (DC) was introduced in 1986 and was constmcted using the fi-ee market principles of private provision and individual choice, characteristic of consumption in modemity two. The DC pension was designed as a personal portable pension for those not covered by a DB scheme. It is managed by an insurance company whom the individual deems to be competent and trustworthy. Willetts (2010) after comparing the two schemes concluded that:

A defined contribution scheme is very different. You have a personal pot of pension saving. You build it up during your working life with usually

some contribution from your employer as well. After you retire you convert it into an annuity, paying you a guaranteed income for the rest of your life.

(Willetts 2010: 245) The individual is able to make choices conceming the size of the annuity but the income from the annuity is determined by the life insurance company on their assessment of the

individual’s life expectancy.