To feel sorry for women having to work till they're 66

[lazylab]

I have 2 friends, one 60 the other 61 who are just so tired and worn out. The 60 year old works full time in a factory, she's totally shatttered at the end of her shift. Basically they're just desperate for retirement, but no chance of that till they're 66. Both these women are single, still paying mortgages, one of them earning fairly good money but the other is basically working just to live, can't afford luxuries or holidays etc. It's just soul destroying. These are just two examples of the plight of those affected by the changes to pension age.

Working full time as a young woman is definitely not the same once you hit 60, the body struggles to cope. I realise it's the same for men too, especially the ones doing physical jobs.
Sorry if it sounds like i'm moaning, but isn't life just shit for some people.

What about the expectations of technology making huge numbers of jobs obsolete? How does having the workforce work longer fit into this world view?

While on the one hand I'm expecting to work well I to my sixties the whole working landscape will be massively different once I'm that old.

I've been watching Tomorrow's World forever waiting for that to happen, bluetongue

From observation and experience a lot of office work now is directed at fixing other work - IYSWIM - so replacing systems, correcting past errors, making new ones... Obviously in manufacturing a lot of work has already gone to technology.

I don't think the number crunchers give that much thought, they just crunch on the basis of current job patterns.

Technology doesn't replace customer service. Tech doesn't stack shelves or clean floors & notice that a "Beware wet floor" sign needs putting out or removing. Tech doesn't sort the bad potatoes from good ones in the harvesting trailer. Tech doesn't fix itself when it wears out.

According to recent hype articles, here is a security guard robot that will take human security guard jobs. It can scan large areas quickly & report vandalism.

Too bad it has no arms to stop miscreants from pushing it over. Do you see legs to chase badly behaved kids up the escalator? Thought not.

Remember the household appliance revolution of the 1950s: every wife would start to have a life of leisure with so many conveniences to help her clean the home & easily cook the food. well, THAT really happened, didn't it? Oh, and there was hype in the 1960s that we would all be heading towards a life of mostly leisure due to technological change. And THAT really happened, didn't it. PAH.

makeourfuture - no, the 60s-80s was a great time for social movement via higher education- full grants covered all fees and were easily enough to live off - for example my mothers full grant was enough to pay her rent, buy books and food and in the last term, she had enough spare cash to buy her wedding dress. Students could also claim unemployment benefit in the uni holidays.

Throw in the golden years of grammar schools (not tutored), and in the 60s & 70s there were very high numbers of working class students.

It was a system that worked, but then got dismantled as it's failings for those who didn't benefit from it were prioritised.

It's not equality. Women's lives are generally spent in an unpaid caring role that they're expected to juggle alongside paid work their entire adult lives. Men generally don't. Therefore women are twice as worn out by 60 and usually have grandchildren and/ or ancient parents they care for regularly. Until this burden is shared equally, women should have a lower retirement age.

Technology doesn't replace customer service

It already has. Try calling customer service lines or using website forms. As for the security robot, it will simply register a miscreant's details and issue a court summons.

We are looking at the dire need for a basic income system. We can start it now and do it right. Or wait and panic.

Thank you InvisibleKittenAttack. Between last night and this morning I'd been feeling gaslighted about my own memories of those brief years of real social mobility post-war to the end of the 80s (roughly).

So the security robot will wrestle a real name, whip the hoody & balaclava off the face, know the vandal's address to send court summons to? I guess all because the robot's kid went to school with the vandal, or has seen the vandal in the shopping centre with his mother & knows where she lives, too.

Customer service in my life Yesterday...
When I went into the leisure centre, a robot didn't swipe my card thru, keep moving equipment for different sessions, wiggle the swimtag back or deal with moaning customers with highly variable complaints.
When I went to the cobbler, a robot didn't explain what I needed or have the skills to do the work.
When I went to the bike shop, a robot couldn't discuss options & point out other repair work that needed doing.
At the charity shop, a robot didn't explain where to put the donations bag or know they accept rags, too.
No robots in the pet shop, or drug store, or the library. Real people helping everywhere.

The public library is understaffed, true -- due to austerity!!

Today, A robot won't stack the shelves at supermarket & tell me where to find something.

I fully expect the state pension to be a means tested benefit by the time I retire. Like all other benefits, it will become a "safety net" benefit rather than something to be expected.

MN of the future will include AIBU about state pension not being enough with responses from others saying "I worked hard, why should I have to fund your life style choice of not saving for your retirement?"

People are so unrealistic about retirement. Example:

Start work at 20
Retire 65
Live to 85

Surely basic maths tells you that you haven't earned enough 'spare' in 45years to cover you for a further 20? Your pensions are coming out of working people's tax contribution - making it even harder for them to save.

Retirees are another example of entitled older people coasting on young people.

I think we desperately need a change in attitude in recruitment. People in their 60's shouldn't be staying in heavy manual jobs that they can no longer manage. If they want or need to change then they should be going into what my Nana would have called "wee jobs". Something in a shop or an office or something that's not manual and is just basically a job that keeps people going financially. Like the job my Grandad had after he officially retired, but wanted to keep his brain active.

That's what my Uncle's partner wants to do. She's 60 and feels she can't keep on with her job in an old people's home - she can't manage the lifting. Yet she can't get an interview anywhere to give her a chance to move to a less heavy/manual job. Several of them have admitted that the main difference between her and the successful candidates is age.

lalala - I think Homebase did this a while ago, rather than hiring teens for their part time roles, they deliberately targeted older people- figuring that an older person working for the last 5 years was better than a student who will quit after 3 years. Older people often had owned properties that they'd done DIY to so had more first hand knowledge of the products they sold etc.

Seems to have been successful, but not many other companies have followed suit.

What happens to the pensions of people who don't make it to retirement age.
Five friends and family have died in the last three years.
The oldest was 62 and the youngest was 44.

"Several of them have admitted that the main difference between her and the successful candidates is age."

That's illegal!! I won't argue about whether it happened, the part I can't believe is that they would be so foolish as to tell her so clearly.

People can retire whenever they like, if they save up for it.

I expect my retirement to be in my hands. I very much doubt there will be a state pension when I retire. I expect the UK will just keep on getting poorer.

One thing I hear about (and I think it's even been said on this thread) is that people need rethink their careers and anticipate having more than one during their lifetime. However how many people realistically can afford to restart a career in their middle age? I know a few women who've had more than one career path I. Their lives but all have had wealthy husband's to support them to retrain or start at the bottom again, what if, like me, your partner only earns about the same you do?
I don't know what I'm going to do once I can't nurse anymore. I'm in mental health, I once read that the average career length for a mental health nurse is 13 years because of high burnout rates. Knowing I've got at least 37 years left before retirement makes me question my past choices to come into nursing.

It's all well and good telling people to save and plan for their retirement but the facts are that many, many people doing essential jobs such as cleaners, nursery nurses, care workers, are on wages so low that they cannot afford to do so.

These are the people who are going to be working at 70+, not the professionals with savings and investments.

And those poorly paid people are the very workers who are looking after the children and homes of higher earners, allowing them to earn. It's crap that they're going to be screwed over for their whole life.

Lweji then explain what the hell you mean by unproductive group that has to be PAID for by those in work, because any pensioner who still pays into the system are helping paying for themselves

And those poorly paid people are the very workers who are looking after the children and homes of higher earners, allowing them to earn.

Absolutely.

Again this is a class issue as much as anything.

What happens to the pensions of people who don't make it to retirement age

Private or NHS type pensions pay out a death benefit to spouses or DCs etc. There is some help from the state in the form of the widowed parents allowance, but people not making it to retirement age is also built into the system, if everyone lived to retirement age, it would be even more unsustainable.

When the state pension was introduced most people started working earlier and died earlier. Now they often start working much later because more go to university and live longer. Simple maths says that things had to change in terms of either raising costs or postponing retirement ages. Of course people would like to be able to retire at 60, but it needs to be paid for somehow.

Some countries have no state pension at all and it literally is work until your die or otherwise you have to save up, which many people cannot afford to do.

There is also the expectation that the elderly move in with younger relatives when they retire - most people rent their home so it's not likely they have property to fall back on - ex communist country.

I'm not that bothered as I'm planning to work well into my 70's. I'm 55 now.
However, I did plan for this. I gave up nursing (much too exhausting) and became a podiatrist which is easy on my old bones and I'm sitting much of the day. I mostly do biomechanics which is brain power rather than brawn.
When I'm retired I plan to set up a clinic in my home and carry on as long as I can.
It must be awful if you are in a manual job and just are not strong enough any more. I think it's essential to start planning an alternative in your late thirties or early 40's.

I was a pensions officer in the DHSS in the early 80s and at that time if you dealt with someone in their late 70s or 80s they were really old. The majority didn't live that long. If you dealt with a centenarian (arranging telegram from the Queen) that was really unusual! So the majority of pensions were paid for about 10 or 15 years. Nowadays people live a lot longer and to be honest you pay in a pittance compared to what is paid out.
The changes to women's pensions were publicised in the 90s but most people don't take notice until they are due to claim. Many years ago women could pay the "small stamp" which meant they paid a tiny amount of NI but it didn't count towards their pension. So they saved by not paying full NI however when they came to retire they were horrified that they didn't get a full pension. They usually insisted they hadn't asked for this and the dept had made a mistake. However, to pay the small stamp you had to apply to do so. When they applied they were thinking about the money they had coming in at the time not how it would affect their pension in 20, 30 or 40 years time which is perfectly understandable. By the time they retired they didn't even realise they were hardly paying anything towards their pension.
For what it's worth I still work in the dept and my brain can't keep up with the constant barrage of change and information. I have 9 years to go until I retire and I wish I could go at 60 with just my works pension but unfortunately it's not great as it's a civil service pension so it looks as though I'll be keeping going for sometime.

I don't feel that sorry for myself - well maybe occasionally but I'm lucky in that my job isn't physically demanding. I think I've still got a few more years in me but if they did kick me out before then, I'd manage. I do feel sorry for people my age who are nurses, teachers, carers, cleaners and anyone (female or male) in front line or physical jobs. And for young people.

LetterEatCake another ignorant post 'Your pensions are coming out of working people's tax contribution - making it even harder for them to save'

No they are not they come out of everyones contributions including tax paying pensioners, you like basic maths ok work this one out.

Who by the end of their life will be taking out more than they put in
My husband who paid on for 45 years and still pays tax who, during his working life didn't get a penny in income based benefits.

Myself who has already paid in for 47 years will be paying in for the next 4 years of my working life including 4.5k a year on my present salary in NI contributions which BTW wont go towards my pension as I already have enough accrued for the new basic one, and will be paying tax until I join the choir invisible again I have never claimed any benefits in all those 47 years apart from child benefit

Or a young working person who during their working life get all the in work benefits going and then get their state pension - how many years do you have to pay into this country to get tax free tax credits
or child tax credits - a lot less than 45 years

Not saying I am working till I drop but towards the end of my employment, I will be sleeping in a lined coffin at night just to be on the safe side.