Pension for life-long SAHP

[LindorDoubleChoc]

What happens when you reach retirement age if you have always been a stay at home parent and your partner retires and doesn't have the income to sustain two people?

Quite niche - but we were talking about relatives of our inlaws where the wife SAH forever, the husband had an above average paying job and reasonable pension I guess (but by no means flashy or wealthy). Now he's retired and not working so will receive state pension and his company pension.

What is the SAHP entitled to in terms of state pension? Are they now better off than when they weren't working? Is it means tested in terms of family income?

I am surprised at how many people here talk about no women of that age working. I am only a few years younger but everyone I knew worked, usually part time once their DC started school. Many jobs were low paid, non pensionable but we did work.

OP has already clarified they meant this person was a housewife.

Is it really that inconceivable to you that societal expectations of people now in their 80s is different to current social norms?

@titchy The title reads "life-long SAHP."

Maybe read OP’s other posts where she clarifies what she means. (Click the filter symbol.)

I’m a bit shocked that there is so much devaluation of women’s work and contribution to the home and community. Raising kids and running a home is work. Looking after a home whilst a partner works is work. We just now pay others to do that so we can work full time outside the home.

Being a foster carer is definitely work! Feminists used to fight to have women’s caring work recognised now we are still falling into the trap of not seeing it as work.

Also many women contributed to the wider community in non paid ways eg volunteering for meals on wheels and helping neighbours.

But I don’t think that they make it clear as to how one makes voluntary contributions either at home or abroad. It should be possible to make direct contributions online payments through the HMRC website (through the personal log in accounts) but that is not currently possible. As far as I know, forms have to be filled in, and then responses have to be waited for.

Looking after children and especially fostering is very much work. Caring for the elderly or disabled is very much work. This kind of work is often harder than other jobs imo.

But being a "housewife" when there are no children at home, is not full time work, any more, with the invention of household appliances like the washing machine and vacuum cleaner. It is possible, and fairly easy, to "keep the home" for 2-3h a day tops (unless you live in a mansion in which case you do not need the state pension).

Being a housewife with no children at home and no one to be a carer for is not work, and yes I am "devaluing" it.

So once the generation that has really generous pensions/those that retired really early are all gone, are people allowed to carry on living past 60? I have no private or workplace pension what so ever at the moment. I do own a property which my plan was to downsize and use that to help fund retirement. Am I allowed life saving surgery post 60 because I won’t be getting three grand a month in old age? Or is it because one generation got very lucky with pensions and money every single other person in generations to come now gets written off at 60?

@Youshouldbestrongerthanme - I cannot amend the thread title. I would have to contact HQ and ask them to do that, but I didn't deem it necessary because most people on the thread have the intelligence to understand what I meant, without the need for tedious pedantry. And I did clarify in a later post.

I didn't expect this thread to degenerate into an argument about whether the over 50s should have surgery , but thanks to the pp who answered my question wrt to pension credits and NI contributions when the children are younger.

Astonished that there could be anyone alive who hasn't met a 90+ year old! Where do you live?

The couple in my op are 79 and 80. My inlaws are 85 and 80 (retired at 65 and 60), my step-mother is 80, my grandmothers were 94 and 89 when they died, my mother was 92, my step-grandmother was 95. None of these women had a career, they all did little bits of part time work. The hardest working was probably my mum who had to work (part time secretary maybe 4 days a week) after my father left her. My mother in law was rural working class and did work such as fruit picking or caretaking in the village school.

Given that the goal posts moved all be it too late, they definitely needs to be flexibility in revisiting the criteria
I don’t know why everybody’s being so un pragmatic about these things
Doctors and nurses up and down the country are highlighting the fact that keeping people alive at all costs, even to the individuals is not beneficial and then they’re painted as monsters for doing so

Wow. The woman who is the subject of this thread is 80 years old. Is there really nobody who Mumsnetters don't hate for being lazy/entitled/scrounging?

I don’t know whether I would have such intrusive surgery even in my 50s but then I suppose I don’t have quite so much to live for,

That's really sad. I hope things improve for you. It's never too late to build happiness. You can surely do it in your 50s.

I’m glad that child care is being recognised. Re being a house wife once kids are grown many women in my life then did volunteer work for example a local church cafe, toddler groups, meals on wheels etc. and very much contributed to the community.

I want think we loose something when the only work considered to have worth is paid employment.

As to someone being a multi millionaire then I wouldn’t be worried how they will manage. I just feel sad on a site for mainly women we don’t value all the work we do whether paid or unpaid.

Of course there will always be lazy people but staying at home to care for the home and children don’t make you lazy in my opinion.

So many women who are working now are drowning with work and home responsibilities (I was in this position at one time.) because we don’t value as a society caring ir child care and the time, energy and mental input this needs.

@LindorDoubleChoc With respect, no need to get defensive.
Do I think a "permanent" housewife is lazy? Personally, yes.
It's not a job.

The people who are "devaluing" women's volunteering work are the benefitting organisations who don't pay for it. Not me.

And furthermore, one should only volunteer if one can afford the time (and indirectly, the lost earnings related to that time).

And not every so-called housewife does/did spend her time volunteering, nor is the state pension or any other benefit dependent on whether you've volunteered, so it's a bit of a side argument really.

If for example, a so-called housewife spends her time volunteering at the local church/school/library, and then is broke and needs money from the state, who has "devalued" her work? It's the church/school/library who didn't pay for her work, who have devalued her work. Edit to add - and the housewife herself for agreeing to do it for nothing. Logically, she has "devalued" it too.

Yeah, women should be paid for their work. Not in state benefits. As a wage.

Soon as things require a wage such as libraries for example the bloody things close

Yeah that's not a good thing either. But two wrongs don't make a right. Organisations can't rely on a workforce of impoverished volunteers propped up by state benefits, it doesn't make sense.

Volunteering, if it must happen, should really be for wealthy, time-rich people, who don't need to be subsidised. But ideally all work should be paid for. I was responding to the idea that this idea is "devaluing women's work" - I'm doing the reverse actually.

The council should pay any volunteer workers via state funding. Just because some "housewives" volunteer, it doesn't mean the ones who don't all deserve renumeration on behalf of the ones who do. It's just not logical

No one cares if you think a permanent housewife is lazy or not. The thread is not yet another debate about that. It was purely about pension status for someone who has almost never worked in paid employment and is not a carer.

I'm not being defensive about the thread, just addressing your pedantry about the title.

@LindorDoubleChoc
Can you genuinely not see that, once again, you are being aggressive in your tone?