News on 1950s women’s Pension

[Immaculatemisconception]

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

That is the debatable point, however:

As I said. The rest is irrelevant.

@Bythemillpond

I left school at 18 and chose not to go to university. I au-paired in Germany for a while, then at 19 started my first job. Also got my first credit card - so they were available to single women

I actually worked for Barclays in a bank in the late 70s and they were not available to women single or married.

I also worked for Barclays Bank, in the late sixties early 70s. Male employees were able to get a mortgage at a stupidly low interest rate. Female employees were not able to get a mortgage.

@StrawberryLipstickStateOfMind there is still inequality and unfairness. This inequality is between generations, sexes,races and so on. I don’t believe an unequal pension age for older women is in any way at all the answer to this current inequality or sex inequality in previous generations. In fact I think painting themselves in suffragette colours while asking for unequal and more favorable treatment is offensive to suffragettes and feminism.

@Immaculatemisconception interesting though your anecdote is, it has no bearing on the issue at hand. Those women who were refused mortgages for being women were the generation before WASPI women.

I was born in 1961. I paid into a workplace pension and my employer paid in for me too. I think things were variable across occupations and different parts of the county possibly too. I got child benefit for my children but there were no government top ups for those on a low income. No help with childcare costs but I was very lucky as my Mum had my children so I could still work albeit part time then full time again once they went to school.

@Immaculatemisconception that makes my blood boil for you all even now. It's no time at all really. It's not even long before I was born in the scheme of things.

I don't like women today minimising the crap you all had to deal with. I know we have to deal with crap still but not to that degree. I bought my first flat in 2009 aged 21- it didn't occur to me at the time that 30 something years previously I wouldn't have been able to do that.

I'm a strong believer in women supporting women. Definitely some solidarity between generations is so important right now.

You've said it yourself- women still don't have equal opportunities. So if things are still unfair now, what do you honestly imagine things continued to be like in the 70s and 80s?

Also maternity leave was much shorter and more difficult to access before changes that took place in the 2000’s.

Even now pensions are still a feminist issue because women are paid less, more likely to be working part time and more likely to take career breaks for maternity leave.

Also interesting that “showing solidarity with each other” involves paying state pensions at an unequal age to some older women whose organization does not support the same treatment for younger women or indeed men.

In fact I think painting themselves in suffragette colours while asking for unequal and more favorable treatment is offensive to suffragettes and feminism.

Oh fgs what nonsense. They aren't asking for more favourable treatment. They are asking for fairness- you really still do not want to concede that they were treated terribly compared to men then?

Forcing them to accept unfair treatment compared to men of their generation doesn't strike me as being particularly feminist either. And doesn't help younger generations. I've said myself- I believe they should also be making some noise about wanting pensions for their children's generation and house prices. Doesn't mean I don't want to see them get what is fair for them.

Even the oldest waspi women weren’t 20 until 1970 so the vast majority of them were not having children until after the 75 maternity act etc.

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.

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.

That's shocking. I mean jt helps me understand though, why so many younger women have almost become complacent about sexism. When they never had a problem in getting prescribed the pill, when it never occurred to them that in the very recent past they wouldn't have been able to get a mortgage.

I was probably complacent in the past. Then I became a mother. Had to get out of an abusing relationship. And wow, my eyes were opened.

Doesn't change the fact though that life was far easier for me in lots of ways as a woman, than for women who were born 40 years before me.

Oh I remember the joy when you could get the pill on the NHS. I used to have to pay for a private prescription. The doctor would give me a 6 month prescription but I can't remember what that cost then you had to pay the pharmacist every month. Some months it was a real struggle.

[quote CayrolBaaaskin]@Immaculatemisconception interesting though your anecdote is, it has no bearing on the issue at hand. Those women who were refused mortgages for being women were the generation before WASPI women.[/quote]
I was born in 1954, so very much in that age bracket. So I have no idea what you're talking about.

[quote CayrolBaaaskin]@Immaculatemisconception interesting though your anecdote is, it has no bearing on the issue at hand. Those women who were refused mortgages for being women were the generation before WASPI women.[/quote]
Well I'm one of the women affected by the changes and the issues of mortgages did affect women born in the 1950s. I had my first joint mortgage in 1973, my husbands salary was counted x3 but I was only allowed to have one year of my salary when calculating the amount we could borrow.

Why do you think women born in the 1950s wouldn't have wanted a mortgage in the 1970s?

@Immaculatemisconception you're the same age as one of my mum's friends, am I right in thinking too that women born in 1954 came out of this situation really badly because their pension ages were put up very sharply, and women hardly any older were able to retire much sooner?

Sorry if that's worded badly, i'm struggling in the heat!

@korawick12345

TBF i find its hard to get on the side of people who will have a far greater pension entitlement than I ever will and SOME of whom also benefitted from things such as free university education, massive house price inflation etc. Most younger people I know have taken the default position that we expect there will be no pension to speak of by the time we get to that age.

Why do you think they will have a far greater pension entitlement than you? There are other issues that women over 60 have been affected by that younger women won’t be. Eg. Maternity benefits - my mother didn’t get any, she was expected to leave work at 34 weeks and not return, not get any maternity pay. A much wider sex pay gap - women civil servants were paid considerably less than men at the same grade as men were expected to be the ‘breadwinner’. Women not allowed a mortgage without their husband’s signature - or credit cards, left women financially vulnerable. Women not accepted into many jobs that were seen as male only jobs. Women left with no financial settlement following divorce especially if they were found to have been unfaithful, despite being left ‘holding the baby’.

There’s a myriad ways that women were financially worse off than men. Then there’s other ways married women in particular were massively disadvantaged, such as husbands could not be charged with rape if they forced their wives to have sex with them.

@Soontobe60 god yes, I forgot that there basically was no such thing as marital rape in legal terms.

Absolutely disgraceful. No things are not perfect by any means and there should be no complacency in continuing to fight for women's rights. All of our sex based rights.

But Christ I cannot imagine not being able to get a mortgage because of my sex. Struggling to access contraception if unmarried. My husband being legally allowed to force me to have sex.

[quote StrawberryLipstickStateOfMind]@Immaculatemisconception you're the same age as one of my mum's friends, am I right in thinking too that women born in 1954 came out of this situation really badly because their pension ages were put up very sharply, and women hardly any older were able to retire much sooner?

Sorry if that's worded badly, i'm struggling in the heat! [/quote]
Yes, you are right.

The Ombudsman's report of provisional findings revealed it believes the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) failed to act promptly after research in 2004 showed its awareness campaign wasn’t reaching the women affected.

In 2006 the DWP proposed writing directly to women to tell them of the change, after a survey revealed nearly half still thought they would receive their state pension at 60.

Yet no letters were sent until December 2007. The Ombudsman’s provisional report said it believed ‘maladministration’ caused the delays.

@Billandben444

This thread has been massively derailed which is a shame. The women affected by the change in pension age were born in the 50s not working in the 50s. The debatable point is, did HMRC give them enough notice so they could make up the shortfall because I don't think anyone can successfully argue that their pension age shouldn't have been increased to match that of men. As to compensation, there's more chance of hell freezing over with the state of the country at the moment and the need for funds to improve end-of-life care is much more important.

I was in the first group of women to get my pension at 65. I think we had plenty of time for the first change but we didn't have much time to budget for the second change. I think I was 58 when the second change was announced, still had two children at uni. I'd budgeted so I could still retire at 60 but 2 years notice to budget for an extra 18 months without a pension wasn't possible.

As it goes I'm still working at 68, circumstances nothing to do with pension age, and any issue about pension age has long ceased to bother me but I was pleased yesterday when it was acknowledged that the 2nd change came in without sufficient notice.

I think the pension age needed to be equal with men and women so I have no objection to that, I have no issue with the notice of the first change but I think it is reasonable to acknowledge that for the first women to be hit by the second change there wasn't sufficient notice.

@Bythemillpond

ajandjjmum

I am presuming you had a father to sign the application forms. I didn’t so had to wait till 1980

I did - and it's a long time ago, but I cannot remember him having to sign any application form. Funnily enough, a friend of mine was a cashier at NatWest at the time, and she opened the account for me. Don't know whether that had any bearing.

I do recall that the Midland Bank needed references for me to open an account with them, but that was purely as a new customer, rather than anything to do with my gender or marital status.

My mortgage was with the Birmingham Building Society (as it was then), and it was in my name only - but that was after 1980.

So much we take for granted now......

Yes, you are right. I think women born in 1953 were actually the ones who had shortest notice, it might have been the ones at the end of 1953.

After my marriage ended, I walked round and round the Building Societies, trying to get a mortgage. I remember being told to go home and talk it all over with my husband.

@ancientgran

Yes, you are right. I think women born in 1953 were actually the ones who had shortest notice, it might have been the ones at the end of 1953.

Yes, that's correct.

After my marriage ended, I walked round and round the Building Societies, trying to get a mortgage. I remember being told to go home and talk it all over with my husband.

This is so awful.

It's all been brushed under the carpet hasn't it, how terribly women were treated, right into the late 20th century? Which is made all the more intolerable because even today in 2021 things are not equal and in fact things things feel like they're getting worse for women again.

Whilst things are better I'm still pissed or at how this very recent bit of history is just swept away. And better isn't good enough.

@korawick12345
Average age for motherhood in 1970 was 27. Sorry the facts don’t agree with you

You’ve misinterpreted this.

Fifty per cent of the women born in 1950 had become mothers when they turned 22.8 years (median age). Among those born in 1970 the median age has increased to 26.7 years.
I had my first child in 1985, aged 25, and was classed as ‘elderly primagravdia’