News on 1950s women’s Pension

[Immaculatemisconception]

Women's state pension: Compensation closer for Waspi campaigners www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-57900320

@borntobequiet no one is contesting that you may have been designated that at 28. There are many posts on this thread acknowledging that. What is being contested is that that terminology was applied to a 20 year old. I suggest you rtft next time.

so much coercive control and gaslighting both at home and at work.
sexual advances rife.
many women did not get good honest financial advice due in part to sexism.

unmarried women didn’t have a right to be prescribed the pill on the NHS until 1974. I think you are over estimating how fast society changed.

I had to take my fiance with me before doctor would give me the pill in 1971. In 1980 I had to wait for him to get home to sign the paperwork for a large well-known company to go ahead with our new kitchen even though I was paying for it myself. With my own money. WTF!

you could also argue that lots of women would have wanted the chance to join the army and actually fight, but were denied the opportunity

This is what Strawberrylipstick said upthread.

Wtaf? No, I was suggesting that they probably weren't happy that SEXISM prevented them from having the same choice to be able to do it or not. I doubt anyone was happy that there was a front line anywhere for anyone to be fighting on

This is what Strawberryliostick said when asked whether she was seriously suggesting that ‘lots of’ women would have wanted to fight on the front line.

She followed it up with this gem:

Fucking hell. The comprehension levels are astounding on here at times

Ironic and pathetic! She’s doing what posters who can’t support their argument always do: resorting to insults.

@fallfallfall

so much coercive control and gaslighting both at home and at work. sexual advances rife. many women did not get good honest financial advice due in part to sexism.

But do you get that you can’t cure injustices with the state pension? That isn’t what it is for. It’s there to ensure a basic standard of living for people who are getting too old to work.

If the state pension were in fact intended as compensation for all kinds of suffering, structural or otherwise, how would you decide which groups got it sooner than other groups?

You mention gaslighting at home. How would you decide who had suffered from it, and how badly? Self-reporting? How many years earlier should that person should receive their pension, compared to a person of the same age who hadn’t?

How would you weight different types of experience? Say that you’d had inappropriate comments at work in 1979. How does that compare to having to pay for a private pill prescription in 1972 because you weren’t married? What’s the tariff?

It would be entirely unworkable even if the state pension were intended as a tool for righting wrongs.

[quote Lockdownbear]@ancientgran you are incredibly fortunate to have been able to have had a career and raise 4 kids.

Can I be really curious and ask what domestic help you had, nanny, family support?

You can't be that much younger than my mum who's career progression was nonexistent mainly because she worked locally for childcare reasons rather than commuting to the nearest city where she'd have had more opportunity, better money but the downside of commute etc. And she was starting to.think about elderly relatives needing support too.[/quote]
Well it varied over the years, I have a big age gap between eldest and youngest.

With my first two I found a nursery place, honestly not easy in the 70s. At school I shared things with two families in my road so one mum took them all to school, I worked flexi time so went to work early and one or two days a week I was the one who got home to pick them up and 3rd family did the same. One mum worked Saturdays as did my husband so they both had a day in the week. I took a group of 4 or 5 to swimming lessons on Saturdays. Some summers the kids had 3 holidays so 2 weeks in family 1's caravan, 2 weeks with us in a chalet, 2 weeks camping with family 3. So holiday was 6 kids not our own 2 per family. Sounds hell but worked well as kids all had a partner roughly their own age and they entertained themselves.

Family two was also complicated, I had a toddler and was pregnant when husband became disabled. When I went back to work I got kids up dressed fed and he managed till 11 or 12 when childminder came and picked them up. Again with flexi I could usually pick them up by 4.30 as I didn't want them in fulltime childcare. Teenage older kids would pick them up if I couldn't.

Just to add to the madness we home schooled the youngest two for 3 years due to circumstances.

Two of my siblings lived abroad so for many summers I had them and their family staying so that helped alot as my kids did stuff with them.

I never had a nanny or any help in the home so at one stage I had 4 kids at home, disabled husband and demanding job. Generally I managed by giving up sleeping, I still don't sleep alot. I did pay for someone to do a big bag of ironing on 2 or 3 occasions when things piled up and I also paid someone to cut the grass.

I suppose I was fortunate but I was also hardworking and determined and most importantly I suppose I had good health.

@StrawberryLipstickStateOfMind

Separate topic but you could also argue that lots of women would have wanted the chance to join the army and actually fight, but were denied the opportunity. Women tend to be worse off in the vast majority of situations and I certainly think women my mums age were when it came to working.

Choice was an issue for both. Personally I'm a coward so I'd definitely appreciate not having to go and fight in a war if I didn't want to.

But do you get that you can’t cure injustices with the state pension? That isn’t what it is for. It’s there to ensure a basic standard of living for people who are getting too old to work.

But that still impacts women differently, because their ability to build up alternative provision, whether based on final salary or contributions, is impacted by being paid less (equal pay claims against supermarkets like Asda are ongoing), and the situation was even worse 40-50 years ago.

Pensions are a feminist issue. It's not always possible to take a case through the courts, but that is the tool that these women have and I am grateful to them for highlighting the long term effect of inequality.

So actually perhaps you can highlight injustices by taking legal action re: the state pension.

The aim of the WASPI campaign, and the ‘Back to 60’ group funding it, is not to highlight injustices suffered by all women. Absolutely not. They want extra money for themselves.

Do they care that women born in the sixties onwards will have to wait much longer than them for their state pensions (and where those women have public sector pensions now tied to the state pension age, their occupational pensions too)? Absolutely not.

Will they share their windfall (hypothetical, because they won’t get compensation) with women born before them, who suffered worse injustices? Again, absolutely not.

Which is why it’s misleading to present the WASPI campaign as a crusade to highlight injustices suffered by women. It is not.

Re the equal pay claims: to be clear, most recent equal pay claims are not brought by women doing exactly the same job as men who have been paid less than men. The recent supermarket cases involve, for example, comparing a group of (mostly) men who work shifts in a warehouse to a group of (mostly) women working in the stores. The equal pay claim is based on an assertion that the jobs are of equal value.

Well, they might be or they might not be. That is why the cases go to court: so that they can be considered by experts. You can’t be suggesting that in cases of this nature, the judgment should automatically go on the favour of the group that contains most women, just because they are women?

@tealappeal

Whatever happened to female solidarity? Or is that an outdated concept? And why does it have to be a competition about who had it hardest? Every generation has its own challenges.

The longer I am on mn the less I believe it really exists. Instead it just seems to be people (women?) falling over themselves to insult someone else and make them feel guilty or stupid.

Maybe it always was thus.

I hope the WASPIs get their compensation. The "I'm fucked so fuck you" argument never appeals to me.

The aim of the WASPI campaign, and the ‘Back to 60’ group funding it, is not to highlight injustices suffered by all women. Absolutely not. They want extra money for themselves.

That is an odd assumption to make.

You can’t be suggesting that in cases of this nature, the judgment should automatically go on the favour of the group that contains most women, just because they are women?

No, that is not the point of the case. Again you are making a strange assumption.

The WASPI women's beef is that the goalposts were moved. We expected to be able to retire at 60, and because of previous inequality in earnings/pensions/family commitments, many were reliant on the state pension to be able to do so. The notification of the changes came too late for them to make alternative financial arrangements, even assuming they could. Therefore many had no choice but to continue working through ill health, juggling care for aged parents etc. and some suffered real hardship. I've "lost" 6 years worth of state pension, and whilst the state pension is a pittance, that racks up to a fair amount.

As a Waspi born June 1954 we are a generation who never had equality with men. I did stay at home to raise our 3 children but we had no benefits our husbands were expected to support us. We did not have holidays during this time, we did not have the money for luxuries. In the workplace we were often suffered sexual innuendoes but we learned to ignore them, no HR departments to run crying to. We The advertisements that were meant to inform us were condescending to women, telling us that pensions were changing but not to worry and that we would receive a leaflet, I did not! I accepted that I had to work to 64 and didn’t mind when I did find out, I was very aggrieved when 2 more years were added on so I had to wait 6 years for my pension that I had paid for it good faith. When I was 64 I requested a state pension forecast I was told that I would have to continue to pay into the pension scheme for this two years although my forecast would stay the same as I had paid in for more than 40 years. I did get pension credits while not working and claiming child benefit. However, my husbands state pension is £50 a month more than mine, equality has never existed for 1950s babies!

@merrymouse

The aim of the WASPI campaign, and the ‘Back to 60’ group funding it, is not to highlight injustices suffered by all women. Absolutely not. They want extra money for themselves.

That is an odd assumption to make.

You can’t be suggesting that in cases of this nature, the judgment should automatically go on the favour of the group that contains most women, just because they are women?

No, that is not the point of the case. Again you are making a strange assumption.

Oh, so you think that we should assume that the WASPI campaign is NOT designed to benefit the WASPI women?

That is the very epitome of a strange assumption.

Re the equal pay cases: you and other posters have referenced them as an example of women’s ongoing oppression, which, according to you, makes it imperative that the injustice it represents is challenged through the courts by the WASPI women asking for more pension. Those equal pay cases are not as simple as you claim. It’s not women v men in the same role. That’s why it is absolutely right that the Asda case is “ongoing”. You can’t claim that case as an injustice to bolster the WASPI argument, because nobody knows yet whether anything unjust has happened.

@StapMe

The WASPI women's beef is that the goalposts were moved. We expected to be able to retire at 60, and because of previous inequality in earnings/pensions/family commitments, many were reliant on the state pension to be able to do so. The notification of the changes came too late for them to make alternative financial arrangements, even assuming they could. Therefore many had no choice but to continue working through ill health, juggling care for aged parents etc. and some suffered real hardship. I've "lost" 6 years worth of state pension, and whilst the state pension is a pittance, that racks up to a fair amount.

Women born after you have “lost” seven or eight or nine years of pension. I’m talking about women who were born at a time when the women’s pension age was still 60, compared to 65 for men.

So what? I was born in 1971. I discovered in 1995, aged 24, that I’d be getting my state pension at the same age as a man born on the same day. I wasn’t crying about injustice. I’ll have paid well over the required number of years of NI contributions. So what? I’m proud to be a net contributor.

In 1995, if you were born in 1953, say, you’d have been 42. You had bags of notice of that change.

Even the second change in 2010, which was the acceleration of the age increase for a small group of women, wasn’t an overnight change, as a PP suggested. The average delay for this group was 18 months. Meh. You just work longer if you are reliant on the state pension.

As for ‘no choice but to work through ill health’: if those women were too ill to work, they should have been on sickness benefits. Please don’t derail by telling me about unfair ATOS disability assessments.

Finally, if you are arguing that the WASPI women were just so tired and had to look after elderly parents and that’s why their state pension age shouldn’t have been increased: why does this only affect the WASPI women? What about the women born in the sixties? Don’t those things affect them too? But it’s OK for them to keep working until 66 or 67, is it?

Goalposts have been moved in other areas too. Child benefit rules. Two child limit on universal credit claims. The state pension rules had to change. They were massively unfair on men for a start. Men had on average less life expectancy but didnt get SP till five years later than women.

I do think the moving of the goal posts could have been more informative.

Growing up I thought I would be retiring at 60. But then heard something that said the age was going to be 65.
I know it has got older but I was never told, I don’t read a newspaper and I have never received anything to say when I will retire. I hazard a guess it will be in the next 10 years for me or it might be longer. I don’t know and haven’t really thought about it

This is it. I don’t ever remember receiving anything either.

Nor do l remember receiving anything when they moved my retirement age to 67. I saw it on tv etc, but never actually received anything,

Men had on average less life expectancy but didnt get SP till five years later than women
It when they were in work they were better paid and had other perks that women didn’t have.
I always thought it was the evening up of things.

If anything I think making the state pension age older and older makes no real difference to when people finish work.

I wonder how many people who are due to finish work at 66/67/68 etc How many actually will remain in their jobs till that age.
I am talking about people who have f/t jobs in a career that they remain in till the day they took their state pension.

I am sure there are many many people who get let go because they are too old but then are years off SP age and end up on UC

Prescriptions cost hardly anything in the early 1970's. So not comparable.

Delaying the pension age is affecting younger people. There would be better jobs available for them if the older people didn’t have to hang onto their jobs until the bitter end.

Im due to finish at 67 years 8 months and it says this could increase by a year under the act.

There is a checker for anyone unsure.

"Women born after you have “lost” seven or eight or nine years of pension. I’m talking about women who were born at a time when the women’s pension age was still 60, compared to 65 for men".
That is correct. But the argument is that some women born in the 50s due to inequality etc as mentioned in previous posts were unable to build up a private pension of note, so in order to retire they really needed the state pension which was denied to them. And the notifications were handled poorly, so that when they realised that their retirement age had extended by several years it was too late to do much about it.
It is right that, if we want equality with men, that our employment terms should be the same, including retirement age, which has had to be extended because there are so many of we old farts that the country can't support us.
No one has picked up on my previous post which stated how skint younger people are going to be when they eventually retire. Everyone has to enrol in a pension scheme these days, but because they're not salary based, the comparative returns will be pants compared to ours. You're going to really need that state pension when you retire at age 99 or whatever they've pushed it out to.....and, unlike us again, you won't have made a mint in your house either......