The ‘Rethinking Work, Ageing and Retirement’ book series explores the impact of extended working lives and changes to welfare states and labour markets on people, organizations and society. The radical changes affecting work and retirement were an impetus for the series. In particular, rising state pension ages, shifts towards individual responsibility and risk in private pensions saving, and the abolition of mandatory retirement ages in a number of countries now frame decisions about retirement. In theory, these policy developments extend individual discretion about continuing in employment, which may create new opportunities for those who want – and are able – to work. In practice, however, it arguably makes retirement timing only a hypothetical choice that people can be held more accountable for. Individuals must now assume greater financial responsibility for remaining in work as long as they need to. For significant numbers of older people this may be difficult to achieve, however, given evidence of widespread age discrimination in the labour market and reduced employment opportunities for this group. This is in addition to difficulties individuals experience in the labour market at any age – for example, due to racism or ableism, or constraints on time and energy stemming from outside paid work, such as care responsibilities. Work itself also appears to be getting more precarious, albeit to differing degrees across countries, and the management of older workers is becoming less straightforward given uncertainties around retirement.

It is in this context that we are delighted to welcome the excellent volume on financial behaviour by Ariane Agunsoye. The landscape of occupational, private and state pensions has changed dramatically in the last twenty years, placing ever more responsibility on the individual to save and to save wisely. This book focuses on the neglected topic of household financial behaviour and the wider financialization of everyday life against the backdrop of the neo-liberal agenda of financial deregulation. It contributes to debates on household finances, reviewing a large volume of literature and going on to use Foucault's analytical perspective in an original way to examine how people make sense of their new financial responsibilities and develop strategies of performance and resistance as ‘everyday asset managers’.