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Original poster

Pension age in women

29 replies

Nellodee · 04/01/2023 20:58

I’ve been thinking about some of the problems we have in the U.K. currently - the social care crisis, childcare costs. I had a thought that these things are greater problems due to the change in retirement age from 60. Clearly, expecting women to take on childcare and social care duties is regressive, and not all women would spend their sixties caring for their neighbouring generations, but a lot would have. We got rid of that, and we didn’t seem to effectively replace it with anything else.
Does anyone else think there is a connection between current issues and the change of retirement age? And the question that is puzzling me - is it economically more cost effective as a country to pay pensions earlier than later if a large enough proportion of those retiring spend much of their free time caring? And I’d this is the case, how could you re-implement it, but in a less sexist format?

OP posts:
RoseslnTheHospital · 04/01/2023 23:30

Women have been in the workplace as a majority percentage for the last 50 odd years though. From about 50% of women working in 1970 to nearer to 75% now. Does the increase by 25 percentage points really account for the care crisis? Is it not as much to do with families not living in inter generational households any more and with more dispersed families? Rather than families all living in the same few streets as each other?

JenniferBooth · 04/01/2023 23:21

Maybe people are finally waking up to the unpaid labour women have been doing for decades. We have healthcare workers on the NHS threads saying families should be forced to do it. One even said that maternity leave could be shortened by 6 months and the other 6 months could be used to care for an elderly parent if needed. As usual women are the default setting.

TheSandgroper · 04/01/2023 23:16

I think you have a good point. Thanks for the Elizabeth Warren talk. I will watch it next week.

My thinking is that a lot of things that require time have gone by the wayside. Kids are not school ready as much, the number of dc’s friends who have no idea how to use a knife and fork (don’t get me started on that one), volunteering at school, elderly family and neighbours left to their own devices for too long, and, simply women running themselves ragged.

I sound very simplistic, I know, and taking women out of the workforce is not my answer. I don’t think that there is an answer. But thank you for raising the subject. It has played on my mind. I will read other replies with interest.

JustWaking · 04/01/2023 22:38

That's a really interesting observation. A 60 year old is likely to have parents between 80 and 90 and pre-school grandkids. Age 60-70 probably are the biggest family-care years, apart from when your own kids are young!

But it might be even more fundamental than that. Watch this brilliant Ted talk by Elizabeth Warren

It talks about how the shift from single-income families to dual-income families over the last 50 years has hugely reduced family resilience. Rather than make families wealthy, costs (especially housing) just increased to reflect the higher average family income! And families which used to have a whole extra adult for childcare/elderly care/care for sick family members/extra income when the main earner lost their job etc now need both adults working to cover their basic costs and so have no contingency.

Arguably the root of the care crisis is women entering the workplace! But it's much better in so many ways for women to be financially independent. I certainly don't think we should roll that back!

Perhaps the proposed move to a 4 day working week is the solution? It gives all adults more spare capacity for caring - or whatever their personal /family needs are.