Retirement age for ladies - why so upset? R2 debate

[AiryFairyUnicornRainbow]

Listening to R2 today - a lot of ladies (who have picketed for equality all their lives, presumably) are now up in arms, that their retirement age has moved in line with mens

So before, women could retire at 60 and men 65 - but womens age was 60.

What exactly are pple upset about?

Have ladies been requesting equality since the dawn of time?

Why do you feel hard done by, when my Generation (your sons and daughters) will have to work long past your retirement age?

I have a relative, who is completely up in arms about this, but has only worked probably 15 years in her working life - as was the done thing stayed at home with kids way beyond school age. No private pension, nothing. Yet is a massive womens libber.

These days, women are felt rushed back into work the minute they give birth, and are literally worked to death. SAHM's are frowned upon by the working mothers

6 years is about 13% of the average working life. You're just enjoying the wind-up.

I'm all for equality am alternative would have been to drop the mes retiring age to 60.

When the change came it felt like you'd been paying all your subscriptions faithfully into an insurance company, only to find out when you neeed the payout they had changed the terms without your consent.
Of course people affected are angry.
The thing is you have to keep paying in even though you've reached the maximum contribution!
Had women been told much earlier things were changing they would have had some opportunity to adjust their financial planning. As it is they were skewered by the government so close to the retirement age they were working towards.

The problem is (I think) that women didn't have employment equality for many years. A lot of women worked part time around children and part time staff weren't entitled to a pension.

I'd be very annoyed if I was one of the women affected with little notice, I started work expecting to retire at 60 and it will now be at least 67. However, I have had years to plan this.

The women who have been most affected worked through times when they did not have financial freedom ie could not take about a loan without their husbands approval. They also had limited access to work in many areas and lower wages just because of their sex. This meant they had less ability to build their own pension and savings, and that's not even thinking about not working when you had children. It's not fair.

You can guarantee that people would be talking about this much more if it wasn't just lower -mid earning middle aged women that were mainly impacted by it.

Coz they are irrelevant to the patriarchy. Can't breed, can't satisfy the male gaze and just generally aren't men. So who cares.

Craftygin
For many women, the State pension is all they will have to live on. It absolutely IS a safety net!
I believe that this decision to raise the retirement age in such a quick timeframe will come back to bite the government well and truly on its bum.
Many women are able to support their children by looking after grandchildren therefore reducing childcare costs for them. Many women are able to support ageing relatives to stay in their own homes instead of having to go into care, at a massive financial cost to the tax payer. That support will now be drastically cut.

I have absolutely no disagreement with retirement ages being the same for everyone, but interestingly I believe men should have been given an earlier retirement age. Current life span ages for men is 79, and for women 82. That means a man will have on average 11 years pension, a woman 14 years. Being forced financially to have to work longer will reduce life span for many, and for those who are not able to work into their 60s, will lead to an increase in benefit claims anyway. To use the argument that everyone should make arrangements for personal pensions assumes that they earn enough to do that throughout their working life. The increase in numbers of people having to resort to food banks shows that many are not now, nor every will be in a position to save money for a pension.
All women have been shafted, and the knock on effect will be substantial for everyone.

Crafty some pension schemes are linked to the state retirement age. So not only can they not get the state pension but they may well not be able to take their occupational pension either.
So despite diligently paying into a scheme, the government have stopped them accessing that for an extra 7 years.

These changes have been brought in under the banner of equality. On the face of it, it is fair to have the same retirement age for men and women.

However, 1950s women, those most affected, have suffered from inequality for much of their lives. These women gave up work to look after children, giving up work pensions and supporting their husbands in their careers. They've suffered discrimination in so many ways, including in the workplace, being paid much less than men for the same kind of work. Many teachers and parents had narrow expectations for girls whose destiny was to be marriage, a home and a family, with work just an interim measure between leaving school and walking down the aisle, rather than a career.

These women are now being punished again, financially, by denying them their pension, just before they expected to retire. It's an absolute travesty.

Even if you had a private pension you plan your age of retirement date at the outset and changing without substantial notice just isn't possible in most cases.
Most financial advisors would understand...perhaps Op has limited financial experience?

When pensions first came in, they were never advertised as a way to maintain lifestyle. They were there for the minimum level of safety net.

It is foolish for people to expect more from the state pension. It was always an expectation that the vast majority of workers would make their own provisions for retirement.

What is different from those early days of the welfare state is longevity. No one was expected to live many years into retirement. Why should it be any different now?

The vast majority of 60 year olds are perfectly fit and able to work.

6 years might not be a lot if you have 20 years to plan for it.

For any woman born after 6 April 1955, they did have 20 years to plan; when the changes brought in by the 1995 Pensions Act came into force, they would have been no more than 40. Their state pension age was changed from 60 to 65. By my calculations, that's 25 years to plan for it.

There is not enough money in the pension fund because the system was flawed from day one, they paid out to people who had never paid in. People are living longer, that's a fact. Pensions are therefore paid out for longer. The same generation that got hit by this also benefited from buying cheap council houses, huge house price increases etc, they have not had it all bad. 60 is very young by current day standards, if you are fit enough to work I don't think it's unreasonable to do so. The state cannot afford to support you just because you planned to stop work at 60.

My pension age has changed from 60 to 67. We had less opportunity for uni education, no equality in workplace, no workplace pension, the gender pay gap, maternity pay didn’t exist, no 8-6 nurseries, no flexible working. So definitely not the same opportunity as men to provide our own pension. Women who would have cared for elderly parents now have no choice but to keep working, meaning parents have to rely on social care system.

Forcing older people to work til they drop means young people are kept out the workplace.
It's not good for anybody's health and mental wellbeing. If people want to work longer that is fine - but being forced to carry on until your late 60's in many types of job is ridiculous.
But to drop extended years of working on people at such short notice is outrageous.

McD - I think I heard recently on R4 that longetivity has finally peaked and has started to decline. I'm sure it will continue to do so until at least my generation dies out. HTH Hun.

People aren’t ‘up in arms’ because they are against equality. A particular cohort of women have been shafted by this, and that same cohort have not had anywhere near ‘equality’ with men during their working lives. The gender pay gap and equal responsibility for caring and unpaid work should have been sorted out before pensions were made equal. These women have not been afforded the same opportunities as men to save for retirement (broadly speaking) so same age retirement is not equality.

My MIL was born in March 1954. She gave up paid work the day she got married and “retired” at 60 claiming a full state pension.

My mum was born in October 1954. She worked from her teenage years, built a career and planned well to retire at 60. She’s now 64 and still not entitled to her state pension.

It’s fucking ludicrous.

It's a massive problem for women that age.

These women grew up at a time when there wasn't much equality. Much harder for women to get a good job and carve a successful career, and if they did then getting paid less than men for the same role was the norm.

If they had children there was much more pressure to give up work or work part time.

All this has a knock on effect on pensions. Women on average have far less in their pension than men by retirement age.

They have made plans for retirement, possibly winding down their career, and with very little notice all the goalposts have changed.

This isn't equality. This is yet another way that women are screwed financially.

Interesting folks who have answered

These women have not been afforded the same opportunities as men to save for retirement - how so?

I dont get it.

For folk who have asked - My relative I mentioned in post 1, she has only worked 15 years of her working life. She stayed at home after having kids and never returned.

The state pension is a safety net, not a way to maintain your lifestyle.

Women born in 1953 were born into a world where the norm was to be a SAHM, or even to give up work on marriage. Consequently, it was acceptable for women leave education at the minimum age, 15, before they had any qualifications, because of course they'd only need a job until they married. (Of course, many women went on to get qualifications and a career, but there wasn't the same pressure of needing to support yourself). So many women are living on the state pension and at most a minuscule occupational pension. You can't apply today's standards to choices made in 1968 when these women were 15.

i feel so sorry for women that are going to have to work till they’re 67, men too. I’m now 65 and full of aches and pains, i’d hate to have to go out working at this age. I know so many women now in their late fifties, early sixties that are physically worn out. Life is one big struggle, especially if they are on their own with no other income.

It's also annoying for women born in 1953. Born before April 1953 you got your state pension at 62 years and 10 months old. At the old, lower rate. Born after April 1953 and you have to wait another two years but you get the new, higher payment. My sister was born 1956 and she will have to wait until she is 66.

PoutySprout your MIL's winding you up. There's no way a woman born in March 1954 would have retired on a full state pension at 60.

Pouty are you sure you got that right. I was born in 1953, i couldn’t get my state pension till i was 62.