What is a Public Sector Pension Worth? *

We measure accruals in defined benefit (DB) pension plans for public and private sector workers in Britain, using typical differences in scheme rules and sector‐specific lifetime age‐wage profiles by sex and educational group. We show not just that coverage by DB pension plans is greater in the public sector but that median pension accruals as a percentage of salary are more than 6% higher among DB‐covered public sector workers than covered private sector workers. This is largely driven by earlier normal pension (retirement) ages but also by differences in earnings profiles across the sectors.