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

I don't understand how people can say that they didn't know the state pension changes were happening until 2 years before they were due to retire.

The change in the law on state pensions happened in 1995, during John Major's government. It was very widely publicised at the time - and referred to and discussed ad infinitum ever since, on TV, in newspapers, in magazines etc. You would have to have been a non-reading, non-TV-watching hermit not to have known!

However, I do agree that women of my generation (born in the '50s) did not have the opportunity to build up a private pension that younger women have nowadays. Most of us didn't work for several years after we had children - and then went into low paid, part-time jobs, which until relatively recently meant that we were excluded from any pension scheme that might have been available to our full-time colleagues.

To help women save for their future, the government introduced stakeholder pensions in the late '90s (or maybe it was in 2000), so the opportunity was there, if people could afford to contribute.

There are so many jobs for laydees in their late 50s and 60s. Employers are positively queuing up to offer them good wages and terms and conditions.

Oh wait ...

I wasn't best pleased when retirement went from 60 to 65 but couldn't (didn't) really argue with the logic of equality with the men's position. It was subsequent changes that annoyed me. How many times will the goalposts move?
The other side of the problem is that society takes time to catch up with law. We know, from experience, that it took a long time for equal-pay legislation to actually translate into pay packets. We are now seeing a similar effect: the law may say that it expects people to work to mid- or late- sixties but not many employers will recruit at that age. We have to stay where we are and 'job block'.

My DM was affected by this and there was no phase in for her. Because of when she was born her allowance to state pension jumped from 60 to 66 immediately. If she had been born 2 months earlier she would have not been affected so finds it particularly galling.

How so grumpy?

My DM was born in 1953 and she'd known for years that her state pension age was going to be above 60 and it did increase a second time, but it didn't 'suddenly jump' there were decades of notice that this was going to happen.

And it wasn't all bad because her later retirement age meant that she got the new state pension not the old one, so about £160 pw not about £110, that it was a few years ago.

I believe that there will be some older pensioners that will still receive this amount, so if she had retired at 60, she would be getting less every week, albeit for a longer time, so at some point, she might end up with more money out of the current arrangement anyway. And because she has some widow's pension, due to deceased DFs pension, she wouldn't have got pension credit on the old system anyway.

My DM was affected by this and there was no phase in for her. Because of when she was born her allowance to state pension jumped from 60 to 66 immediately. If she had been born 2 months earlier she would have not been affected so finds it particularly galling.

No it didn't! As 80s mum said, the intial change happened in 1995 when your mum would have been about 40. If her retirement age is 66 now, the earliest she would have been born is 1954. The 1995 change would have then put her retirement age at about 64, roughly the same as for someone born 2 months earlier. The last group of women who qualified for their retirement pension at 60 were born in 1950!

It's a necessary change unfairly implemented. It's grossly unfair imo.

The truth is that women may have achieved more gender equity in the public sphere, but

1. there is still a glass ceiling looking at the number of women in board rooms
2. news presenters are a case in point - women tend to get put aside, when they are getting older and less attractive
3. prime ministers - there have only been 2 women in England

However, in the private sphere women born in the 50s were faced through much of their working life by family roles, which constrained their choices. How many of those women in the most productive years of adult life were still expected to do the majority of the housework, if they did work; either do or manage the childcare; if they had a disabled child they had to do all the childcare, go to all the appointments, etc; and care for their elderly parents if needed? There was certainly no gender equity for them iirc; and reading MN it seems that some working women still struggle to get through to their DH/DP that they are responsible for 50% of the childcare and housework? Some WOHP still seem to accept part time work, lower level jobs, etc to fit around children, more than men?

Carers UK says on its website:

1. Overall, women are more likely to take on caring roles than men. Of the 6.5 million unpaid carers in the UK 58% - 3.34 million - are women.

2. Carers UK has calculated that the economic value of the unpaid care provided by women in the UK is estimated to be a massive £77 bn per year.

3. Female carers are more likely to be providing ‘round the clock’ care, with 60% of those caring for over 50 hours a week being female.

4. Women are also more likely to be ‘sandwich’ carers - caring for young children and elderly parents at the same time.

5. Caring falls particularly on women in their 40s, 50s and 60s. 1 in 4 women aged 50-64 has caring responsibilities for older or disabled loved ones.

6. Women aged 45-54 are more than twice as likely as other carers to have reduced working hours as a result of caring responsibilities.

7. 72% of those who receive Carer’s Allowance, the main benefit for carers and worth £62.10 a week, are women.

8. Carers of both genders, but particularly women, are likely to be in ‘elementary occupations’ – process plant and machine operative jobs, or sales, customer services or personal services.

9. Women are more likely to have given up work or reduced working hours to care, particularly in their 40s-60s. Women aged 45-54 are more than twice as likely than men to have given up work to care and over four times more likely to have reduced working hours due to caring responsibilities 9

10. Women have a 50:50 chance of providing care by the time they are 59; compared with men who have the same chance by the time they are 75 years old.

It is unfair to talk about how women have to suck it up in the equality of pension ages; when those women have been penalised in the loss of earnings, career progression and private pension contributions, because they were caring - while their husbands, brothers, fathers, etc were not doing 50% of the caring and were able to get on with their work, pension contributions, etc.

It's the age group ime who did face barriers to well paid jobs.

Even unionised roles : some union negotiators colluded in keeping women's pay lower than that of their male members. Business owners could prefer a married man for a role and many including my mum would agree that that was fair because the man had a family to support.

It's rotten imo.

pouty To get full state pension you’re Mil would have needed at least 30 qualifying years of national insurance contributions, or credits through having children? I don’t think she’s telling it right.

But this discussion is about the state pension, and national insurance credits are given for caring for both children and older/disabled people where carer's allowance is paid, so SaltPans points are irrelevant.

My DM gets the full state pension and just about all her NI record is due to being entitled to either child benefit or carer's allowance. She also did some part time work, but it was always deliberately below the NI threshold, which was a common way of employers and employees acting at the time. She probably earned above the NI thresholds for about 10-15 years of her 'working age adult' life.

My sister in law retired at 60 and she was born in 1951.

My cousin also retired at 60 and she was born in 1958.

Both teachers though if that makes a difference.

I think it was fair to equalise the pension age to 65, and as others have said this change was planned from 1995 so we all had plenty of notice. What is unfair is the way the increase to 66/67 has been implemented, which has created a cliff edge that some women have had no time to plan for.

@PoutySprout:

www.savvywoman.co.uk/2012/01/raising-the-state-pension-age-to-66-when-can-you-expect-your-state-pension/

Your MIL is telling porkies I think!

I dont get the "no time to prepare" arguement. In what way do you prepare? You just continue working. If retirement age was suddenly brought forward, then you'd need to prepare because you might not have saved enough.

I have some sympathy, but... as previous posters, this change was announced years ago, and I, for example chose to make some additional payments to add some years to my NI contributions. I now have a full entitlement but won't get my pension until I am 67.

The issue is, and has been for some time, the inability to get these necessary changes through parliament earlier in our lifetimes. Too many governments were too scared of the grey vote to push these plans forward, and therefore be able to implement them in a more gradual manner. This led to a crises in funding which then had to be squeezed in to a shorter amount of time, and has disproportionately affected a small number of women, born in a short time frame.

I look at my mothers generation, retired at 60, and has received her pension for 32 years. She never worked, she never paid into the system, and has also had numerous operations and support from the NHS and social services. She does pay for her own carer at £850 per month, but the state has to pay for those who can't afford it. The costs are just unimaginable.

The truth is, that regardless of how many years you paid, most people will not cover their costs of healthcare and pension from what they have put in. We will get £600 odd per month, possibly for 25/30 years, how many people has realistically paid that much in? The rest comes from general taxation. In 1953 pensions as a % of GDP was 3%, it is now 8%, and that is only pensions, not NHS or social care. We are in crises.

Satsumaeater, your SIL could have qualified for her retirement pension at 60 + 8 months at the earliest, so could have received it as soon as she retired from teaching.

Your cousin may well have retired on her teacher's pension but is not entitled to her state retirement pension yet.

Although the changes in the state pension age was publicised in the media at the time, it was not necessarily clear to people whether the changes were going through and how they affected them.

I have been through a few changes in my retirement age for state pension. For the first one, I received a very clear letter saying exactly how the changes affected me, and when I would be retiring. Any information from my employer also re-iterated that information.

For the later changes, we expected that we would be informed in a similar way. Although there were changes mentioned in the media, it was never acknowledged in any way, either in a letter, or in anything received through my employers. Even trying to look facts up on the websites didn't work, because there was no calculator etc, just a vague note that there were changes afoot, and you might be affected when it was all worked out. It was phrased in a way that made it sound as if it was still all under discussion and there was no point getting in contact to ask.

It would have been more helpful if they had been honest and just communicated our new retirement age to us via letter or through our employers.

I think they just wanted to avoid a backlash and kept quiet hoping they could blame us for being useless.

@Satsuma
My cousin also retired at 60 and she was born in 1958.

She will not receive her state pension until she is 66. She will be receiving her teacher's pension.

People also talk about working an extra 7 years but the cost is really 14 years as it's 7 years extra contributions for 7 years less pension.

And this for a generation of women who left school or education earlier and may have been working since they were 15.

PoutySprout I doubt your MIL got a 'full' state pension if she'd never worked after marriage. She would not have made enough contributions.

BarbaraofSeville

Explain why my points are irrelevant? Consider two women:

1. one, who refuses to care for a disabled or elderly relative and works full time - she gets a full time salary and can make private pension contributions until she retires, then gets a state and private pension in her own name. The state has to pay for the care of a disabled relative, and may have to pay for an elderly person, if they have practically no assets.
2. one who gives up her full time work and cares for 35 hours plus a week (most likely 24/7) - she only gets carer's allowance at £64 currently, until she is 66/67 and then the state pension. The state is saved a considerable amount of money in care fees.

Whereas before, she could have claimed the state pension at 60 and would therefore had more money to live on, she now has to survive for another 6/7 years on £64 per week. If the relative has died, how many women can go out and get a job at 60, to keep them going until state pension age?

I don't understand how so many people didn't know about the change from 60 to 65 - I was a teenager when it was announced in the November 1993 budget, and I remember it, because it was quite significant. I've been looking at how much coverage there was, and the FT pensions correspondent reported to Parliament that there were 98 references to the change in the national print media alone in 1993 (presumably mainly Nov and Dec). I think that we have a bit of a responsibility of citizens, even if you have no interest in politics normally, to have a glance at the budget announcement. If you choose not to, well fine, but it's a choice to be ill-informed.

An interesting point of comparison is that students who started university in Sept 1998 only had 10 months notice that they would be paying fees and losing grants (replaced by loans). Many would have already had their application forms in by Nov 1997, when they announcement was made. Some people might have made different choices about A levels, and gap years, had they been given more notice.

If I'd known I wouldn't have taken a gap year (not travelling - I was working to save for Uni, ironically!), and would have been 10k less in debt on graduating (I'm from a very low income household, so would have had full grants, but had to take full loans instead). I escaped the 1k fee though, as it was means tested.

This was known about in the 90s. They've had decades to prepare.

I think it's personal responsibility to keep yourself informed.

I'm another of the 1950s born women who are affected by this.

Sorry this is going to be a bit of an essay.

First notice I had was the budget in 1995 which was reported as "state pension age to be equalised in 2016(?)"

Now I'm probably too much of a pedant but as I would be 60 before that date I thought it wouldn't affect me. That hinged on the word IN whereas BY might have made me think. I didn't realise I was affected until about 2010 or 2011 when the chancellor announced the increase to 65 (and a further increase to 66) would be speeded up. I was then only 2 years away from when I expected to get my pension so to be told I had to wait almost another 7 years was a bit of a shock. We never had any official notification about the increase until after this. Yes it was in the papers but seriously how many women read the financial pages in detail?

I'm all for equality but what most younger people probably don't realise is that for the first 15 or so years we were working, women did not have equality in wages or working conditions (despite the equality acts in the 1970s and 1980s), we were often disbarred from joining employers' pension schemes, and some jobs weren't even open to married women. Employers openly discriminated against women; average wages are STILL lower in professional jobs where there aren't set pay scales; and over her working life most women don't earn anything like as much as men. There was very little provision for child care and most women did stay at home when the children were young. NI credits for mums with young children were only introduced when mine were too old to qualify. Our generation did not have anything like equality when we were working so it's unfair to treat us as though we were equal now.

Another important change introduced was that married women would no longer be able to claim a pension based on their husband's contributions, thus penalising a lot of SAHMs, and this was even less well publicised.

My birthday is in August and I left school in the July just before my 16th birthday. My best friend whose birthday was in September (so almost a year older than me) got her pension a full THREE YEARS before me, and my cousin who is 3 months younger than me has to wait another year.

Those who pointed out the state pension rate since April 2016 is higher: yes the basic rate is higher but any additional amount of graduated pension or SERPS you earned isn't calculated the same so if you were on a decent wage the end result isn't that different (SERPS was an earnings related supplement that was scrapped I think about 2002) I was told that there is a transition period during which the pension is calculated under both systems and they pay whichever is the higher amount.
But as they don't tell you exactly how it's worked out, you just have to accept whatever figure they give you. If your total income is just under under the current state pension rate you can claim pension credit which gives you an automatic passport to all sorts of other concessions, so it's not as bad as it sounds. Beats filling in forms for everything from council tax to dental charges every year.

Plus the requirement for a full pension was changed from 30 years NI contributions to 35. My fault, but I don't have a full contribution record (partly due to an extended break to go into further education), and it's impossible to make up those extra 5 years when you only have 2 years notice of that requirement. In fact the letter I finally got telling me my retirement age (sent in 2013) still said 30 years contributions.

My biggest gripe is the amount of notice we were given. The govt. have admitted that more could and should have been done to notify us of the changes, but this was only a generic comment in a report and not something we have been officially told. To rub salt into the wound, in 2011 when the retirement age for judges and other senior public servants was raised, it was decided that those affected by these increases would have at least 10 years notice. They have not afforded this right to a whole generation of women.

Just to add there's plenty wrong with the benefits system, but waspi women aren't really that affected and did have all the time and notice to prepare.

The state pension is massively unaffordable, it was bought in to stop people starving to death that lived beyond the average age and had a hard life. It should have risen with life expectancy or more money paid in to make it sustainable. I'm in my 30s and am planning on no benefits for me in retirement.