Ageism,ignorance, intolerance. class bias on mumsnet re Waspi women

When I went to university, 8% of women went.
Many didn't have that privilege and were in full time work from 16.

Perhaps the generation after that who will retire at 75 may feel bitter about the privilege of those who were able to retire at 68.

My mum was a single parent who struggled to work for many years due to childcare responsibilities and her mental health. Around maybe 15-20 years ago she was actually advised by an agency working for the government (I can't remember the name but was well-known at the time- a private company the government had outsourced some of the job centre's activities to, they were supposed to support people back to work) that she'd be able to claim state pension at 60. In fact she had to wait to 65. She actually questioned at the time what she was being told as she had heard about changes in the news, but they were adamant they were correct. So it's not even always a case or not being informed, but of being completely misadvised by representatives of the government themselves who should have been trusted to know

You make excellent points, some I hadn’t even thought about in the context of being a woman in society for this generation. It’s not just about whether these women knew about the impending changes, it’s about whether they had the ability to sufficiently prepare for those years and I think in many cases, the answer is no. I’m 46 by the way, and feel extremely fortunate to be a woman of my generation with many opportunities available to me. I don’t think the same applies to the waspi women.

And you will get a pension. No one has taken tha away, just at an older age, like all of us. The money to find any compensation for a lower age for pensions can only come from one place. Current workers.

No-one is asking anyone to do anything.
Women who have worked for years should get a pension. Governments have a responsibility to work out how this should happen.
Don't put the blame on older women.

@queenMab99 why wasn’t 11 years long enough to prepare?

Could these ladies not continue to work until 65, like men were expected to do?

Adults are now expected to work until 68 to claim their pensions. Should they be compensated too?

This ⬆️

Well said. I'm the same age as you. I'm still paying a mortgage, working full time, definitely not loaded and the ignorance of some of these comments is breathtaking.

Work pensions did not become compulsory until 2018 meaning many women have nothing except the state pension. Not loaded, not homeowners. And who knows how they voted with Brexit, or indeed how that is relevant.

The money you paid for 40 years has been spent on the pensions of the generations above you. Who were incidentally a lot smaller and shorter lived.

You are now asking a smaller generation, who will retire a lot later to fund you to retire at 60.

What on earth does that have to do with the topic?

The OP was talking about a lack of solidarity from younger women for policies that support working class women over 65. The vast majority of working class women over 65 voted Brexit and Conservative/Reform, against the interests of younger women. Solidarity has to work in both directions.

Being able to retire at 60 was the one thing which was favourable to women as opposed to men. In a world which was and still is in many ways, rigged against us, it was important, and we paid our pension contributions for 40 years in the knowledge that we would be able to retire at 60. We were informed, but 11 years is not long enough to rearrange either expectations or finances, around something which has seemed to be set in stone, and I, for one could not quite believe it. Then it was moved again from 65 to 66. Since then there have been many shocking changes for those of us who were born in the 50s, like no longer being able to access an NHS dentist, and rescue by ambulance/A&E becoming uncertain in our times of need, not to mention leaving our hard won place in the EU.
We didn't have it easy financially, as many seem to think in the 70s and 80s but we thought it was worth the struggle, as we thought we were paying into a system which would care for us in our old age and subsequent ill health. So yes, we did expect compensation for the loss of something we foolishly thought we had paid for, and found to our cost that it had been a very big scam!

Yes! I'm just into gen x. Many of us were never going to earn enough to have good private pensions and relied on council for housing. I am extremely pro social housing!
The presumption that everyone over the age of 50 is bigoted because they are older is prevalent on here too. As if it wasn't today's older generation that campaigned for rights and anti-rascism.

Even into the 80s it wasn't unusual for employers to ask if you had a boyfriend before employing you and schools expectations of many girls wasn't to go past the local factory, shop or if you had half a brain working in the bank.

Good points. I think it's just one of these lazy stereotypes that takes hold. Sometimes people look for others to blame for their predicament, so it could be migrants, those on benefits, older people etc.

It’s a Council house so it should be given to a family needing the four bedrooms. Why build more council houses for families when houses are being blocked by one person living there. For the pension issue if they compensated those who gave up work earlier than they should compensate those who continued working as well as they weren’t at home so they might have suffered hardship physically/mentally through working.

What on earth does that have to do with the topic?

@nepkoztarsasag Are you not capable of intelligent debate?

Well, I have found that it's changed in my 40+ years in the workplace.

Many of these women started full time work at 16. There was not the same amount of maternity leave or provision.
However, there's not a bottomless well of money, although I always think it can be found for other things.

I get it OP and feel for you and other women in this position

That's still a pretty common attitude, just not said openly like that any more.

My working class granny, who worked on a dairy farm most of her life, worked until she was 75, "doing the books" for various small businesses.

I'm shocked by the vitriol I've seen against older women who didn't know about the changes. I think it's part of the usual viciousness on Mumsnet towards the less well-off or fortunate.

The complete lack of grasping simple facts such as how difficult it is to keep up with government changes to rules if you're semi-literate, working three jobs, sleep-deprived, homeless, etc. etc. is beyond belief.

Most boomers I know had desperately difficult lives in poverty, homeless as single parents, and are struggling as pensioners now. I don't know where this myth of rich elderly people on cruises comes from.

Sorry @CAJIE but I disagree I remember when my working class mother was informed about the change back in the 90s. She received 3 letters and each came with a leaflet explaining exactly what was happening and what she needed to do, all the tv, radio and newspaper/magazine articles explaining everything in detail, you couldn't avoid hearing about it.
She had more than enough time and knowledge to deal with it by working towards a MW desk job that she could still do in her 60s. I know many women won't have been able to do that and would be like my grany who cleaned toilets until the day she retired with her tiny private pension (so tiny that she still got state pension).
I find it really offensive to say that WC women wouldn't have understood the letters or pensions, all the WC women I know understood it and just kept working.
I could point out that the only women I know who seem to have been caught out by this change were the MC women who never worked or worked in high paying jobs who retired early without thinking about the extra years that they had to self fund until they hit the new retirement age, but that's not because they are MC but because they chose to stick their heads in the sand and ignore it or were so arrogant that they thought they didn't need to think about it, many of the MC women I know beefed up their pensions, made other arrangements or just kept working.
This is not a class issue nor is it something that anyone should be compensated for. 25-35 years is more than enough time to make plans

It is a hard ask the generations facing a retirement age of 68 or older to shell out billions to compensate a small group, many of whom suffered no real financial harm, for not being able to retire at 60. You must see that surely?

This. I was told at one interview that they were going to employ a man rather than me because I might get pregnant. That was not uncommon. It was a given that men got preference for promotion and higher status jobs.