Retiring without working

[MewMew101]

My Aunt is approaching retirement age, but she has never worked a day in her life. How would she be able to pay her bills when she does reach retirement age etc.

I’m assuming won’t have enough NI contributions to even get the minimum amount of state pension, since she has never worked? Let alone a workplace pension…

This is something that is baffling me! I would be terrified if I was in her position…

The state pension is paid per person
So she should do this

Her husband can pay I believe up to 6 years of any missing in the past National Insurance contributions

Her husband may have paid into a private work pension which they could share ?

www.gov.uk/check-state-pension

She can check her record here

https://www.gov.uk/check-national-insurance-record

@UrbanFan I know someone like your SIL too - who is early 70s and yet goes on about 'we worked hard' ( no love - your H did) and is always on about benefit scroungers whilst bringing jack shit herself to the family finances - even when her kids were adults- and no she has no disability's etc- to be honest I wouldn't have an issue with that if she was just frank and said I've not needed to work as H earns well and didn't want to- and she didn't push the 'we worked hard' angle and attitudes about benefit scroungers.

If you'd read the op's update, you would see that the aunt is on pip so has a disability.
Some people on pip can and do work, but that doesn't mean that everyone on pip can.

And many people with a extreme disability can and do work for most of their lives.

What do you call extreme disability?

Does she have children?

I believe NI stamps are paid until your children are 12 if you receive child benefit. You need at least 10 years of NI to get any state pension, but 35 for the full amount.

I work in benefits for older people and can tell you there are masses of older women who judging by the level of their state pensions have barely worked. Now it may be that of course I am only seeing them because they are a group more likely to need help to claim benefits but it has really opened my eyes as to how many there are. My own mum never really worked again after having kids, except for very part time jobs when I was secondary school age but never more than 10/12 hours a week. When I was a kid none of the mums in the street worked at all or went back to work after having kids.

That's interesting, @Miley1967, and totally at odds with my memory of older women I knew when I was growing up - my female relatives, our neighbours, my schoolfriends' mothers, and so on. I was born in 1961 and I can hardly think of any mothers who didn't go back to some sort of paid work after the children were at school. It was often part-time and low paid, but it was rare to do nothing, unless there were significant caring responsibilities for a family member with a disability or a very elderly frail relative, say.

I wonder if some of the women you're encountering paid the married women's stamp and therefore only had very low NIC on their own account? It was very common to do that because (a) married women mostly expected to rely on their husbands' contribution records and (b) it meant more net pay at a time when money was often very tight, hence going back to work. See also: women who asked for their pension contributions back from their employer when they left, instead of leaving them there until they retired. All very short-sighted, but understandable when retirement seemed a very long way off.

... and just to add what I thought but didn't write in that previous post, some of those married women who relied on their husbands' contributions lost out because of divorce or being widowed or the husband becoming unable to work. One of the many reasons the married women's stamp was phased out.

And also, when it was optional to join a pension scheme, many women didn't, again to maximise take-home pay. A great shame, as it's always been such a tax-efficient way to save, and the old-fashioned defined benefit schemes were often fantastic.

She has 4 adult DC. The youngest is 28

She has 4 adult DC. The youngest is 28

So she would have gained stamps until the youngest was 12. So she will have some sort of state pension, but probably not the full amount.

Until fairly recently NI was paid until the youngest child is 16, so there's a minimum of 20 years contributions there, likely more.

Plus she could have worked for a few years before she had DC.

@Miley1967 yep- my own age (63) most I know did a bit of part time ( under 20 hours) at best and even then on and off- and of my mothers friends (82) an awful lot didn't seem to even do that post kids- I did live at the time though in a midlands mining town and there were not a ton of interesting part time jobs around or even full time interesting ones and plenty could get by on 1 wage with low housing costs and often quite decent wages for the main breadwinner as far more manufacturing/industrial jobs at time and a lot more council houses etc!

Guess it depends where you lived. I'm similar age to crieyalmightly but lived in the south so housing was more expensive. Was much harder to live on one wage, unless you were in council which was/is really hard to get. OK if you didnt mind living in a small house and even then only if you partner was in a decent job. I'm degree educated and most of my uni friends worked FT or nearly FT as it was hard to get decent PT roles - companies ruled you out of most management roles if you wanted PT. I really dont feel much different to my kids, but we didnt get any help towards childcare costs

That doesn't mean that everyone who has a disability can work though does it? It depends how their disability affects them.
Im disabled, I worked full time for 40 years but can only manage part time from home for my husband's business now.
Some days I'm in too much pain to do anything and the medications that I take for the pain knock me out.
Do you think that an employer should/would put up with that?

@dreamingofsun it's definitely a factor- when I moved to London from Nottingham post divorce. I couldn't believe how many interesting jobs both full time and part time were around -I nannied for a bit as I got accommodation , met my H and then temped fora year in lots of fantastically varied and interesting admin Or reception type jobs in London - I could not believe the difference-

I'd say overall not as well educated is a fair comment. My Mum is in her 60s and her careers advice at 16 was that she would make a very good housewife - she was top stream in a grammar school. Let's not pretend that as many career and education options were open to women in the 1970s and 80s as they just weren't, especially if you didn't have a lot of family money and supportive parents to back you.