Boring pension topics don’t have to be SO dull. Let’s make them real — and maybe even a little exciting.
📌 TL;DR
- People rarely feel emotionally engaged with “utilitarian” services like pensions.
- Research by Jenna Barrett shows that emotional distance is the real enemy of action.
- Her consumption brackets technique helped people imagine retirement as a lifestyle choice — not just a financial number.
- This shift made people actively choose to increase their pension contributions.
- The takeaway: if you want people to care, make them feel real.
The paradox of pension engagement
Pensions are a curious thing: they impact your entire future, yet most people tune out the moment the topic comes up. In behavioral science terms, pensions fall into the category of utilitarian services — functional, necessary, low-emotion. Think: insurance, energy contracts, tax filing. We know they matter. But we don’t feel them. And we certainly don’t act on them.
So how do you get people to care about boring pension topics…?
Behavioral researcher Jenna Barrett explored exactly this question in her PhD research on customer engagement in useful vs. pleasurable services. While many brands try to “gamify” or “delight” their users, Barrett found that this often backfires in serious domains like pensions. Fun doesn’t help if the foundation still feels meaningless.
Instead, she suggests something more powerful: make it personal.
From abstract numbers to real life
Perhaps you have seen an overview such as the one below in your own pension description. In the Netherlands, for example, you can log in to www.mijnpensioenoverzicht.nl en get an overview of how much income you can reasonably expect after your pension.
But what does €1681 monthly income mean when you’re 67? Is it enough? Barrett tried to make a difference here by adding evaluative labels: “minimum”, “moderate” and “comfortable”, see the table below.
| Contribution Rate | Monthly Pension Income | Retirement Living Standard |
|---|---|---|
| 1% | €874 | Bare Minimum |
| 6% | €1,450 | Minimum |
| 8% | €1,681 | Lower Moderate |
| 12% | €2141 | Moderate |
| 15% | €2,487 | Upper Moderate |
| 18% | €2,832 | Comfortable |
| 20% | €3062 | Upper Comfortable |
But still.. What does minimum or comfortable mean for your daily life? One of the most compelling chapters of Barrett’s dissertation introduces a simple but transformative design: consumption brackets.
Rather than asking people to choose an abstract savings rate or imagine a far-off retirement age, she showed them realistic monthly lifestyle scenarios. What kind of life could you afford with €1,335 a month? Or €1681? Or €2,832?
Would you be able to travel? Give gifts to your grandkids? Go out for dinner? Live independently — or rely on your children for housing?
By turning abstract financial planning into concrete life planning, something remarkable happened:
People opted to increase their pension contributions.
They weren’t responding to a number. They were responding to a future they could see, feel, and imagine living in.
This becomes even more powerful when you look at the full design behind these consumption brackets.
In Barrett’s original research, the layout didn’t just include income projections. It moved step by step:
- First, the contribution rate — how much of your salary you set aside now
- Then, the resulting monthly pension income
- Followed by a tier label: “Minimum”, “Moderate”, or “Comfortable”
- And finally — the part that truly made the difference — a day-to-day lifestyle description
Here’s a simplified version of the lifestyle description:
| Retirement living standard | Groceries | Transport | Holiday Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| minimum | €38 weekly | No car | a week and a long weekend in country of residence |
| moderate | €46 weekly | 3 year old car replaced every 10 years | 2 weeks in Europe and a long weekend in the country of residence |
| comfortable | €56 weekly | 2 year old car replaced every 5 years | 3 weeks in Europe every year |
These descriptions are what truly change people’s thinking.
Numbers don’t mean much in isolation. But when you say “that allows for a short vacation, fresh food, and occasional dinners out,” it becomes visceral. It connects financial choices today to lifestyle consequences tomorrow.
What this means for boring pension communication
This isn’t just a clever design trick. It points to a deeper truth in behavioral science:
People don’t make better decisions when you give more information.
They make better decisions when you translate that information to their daily lives.
If we want people to engage with pensions or any important but “boring” system, we have to move beyond education and information leaflets. We need communication that makes the future feel close and relevant. Visuals. Stories. Questions like: What does a good life mean to you — and what does it cost?
A note for international readers
If you’re reading this from the US or UK: you might be thinking, “Isn’t pension planning already a personal choice?”
In many countries, yes — people decide individually how much they want to contribute and where to invest it.
But in the Netherlands (where The Behavioral Times is based), pension contributions are automatically deducted via employers. People rarely have to opt in — but they also rarely know how much they’re contributing, or whether it matches the future they envision.
So while the system takes care of the basics, it often leaves people disengaged — and vulnerable to a mismatch between dreams and financial reality.
From boring pension topics to real life
If there’s one takeaway from Barrett’s research, it’s this:
People don’t want to talk about pensions. But they do want to talk about their lives.
So let’s start there.
In fact, I highly recommend this simple social experiment:
- Log into your local pension portal (in the Netherlands: www.mijnpensioenoverzicht.nl) with a group of friends some Friday night. Share what you see. Compare. Imagine. The numbers on their own may feel cold. But comparing, reflecting — even arguing about your future lifestyle? That’s where the spark happens.
- Or hey — ask ChatGPT to help you brainstorm what kind of retirement life you’d can afford based on your income. It’s weirdly fun. And useful. If you don’t like the future that you can afford, it’s time to make a change in your life right now.
Make boring topics real – also for me
I just spent hours turning one of the driest topics in the world into something real, relatable, and — hopefully — worth your time.
If you’d like to support more of this kind of work, here’s what your contribution could mean:
| 💵 Contribution | 🎯 What it helps make real |
|---|---|
| 💸 $5 one-time | ✍️ One hour of focused writing (no inbox, yes coffee) |
| 💸 $10 one-time | 🎨 A custom visual (like the consumption brackets or header image) |
| 💸 $20 one-time | 📬 A full newsletter — from concept to send, including layout and SEO |
| 💸 $50 one-time | 📚 A mini-insight on request (e.g., decision-making, sustainability, stress) |
| 🔁 $5 monthly | 🧘 Ongoing breathing room to keep BT articles alive and well |
| 🔁 $15 quarterly | 🧠 A full article — thoughtful, visual, grounded in science |
| 🔁 $60 yearly | 🗓️ Three fully developed BT articles per year — planned, written, tested and delivered |
| 🥳 $1000 one-time | 🎥 A personal thank-you, 💃 a happy dance, 📦 a year of content — plus your name in the newsletter (for the beautifully unhinged superfans 😄) |
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🧡 Thank you — even just reading along already helps.
📚 References
- Jenna Barrett (2024). Money Matters – Understanding and improving financial well-being.
- Tables are simplified versions of the Tables depicted in Chapter 5 – Appendix A.
