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

*Travisandthemonkey Fri 07-Dec-18 23:50:47

Also, sorry to say this. But if you had a well paid job. Why the holy fuck didn’t you put into a private pension of your own accord????

I don’t have a work place pension I still put money away. Because I don’t presume I’ll have a state pension at any age.*

Prior to the pension reforms in the mid 1980's (and still an issue in many company pension schemes) it was almost impossible to transfer a pension to another scheme when you changed jobs. If you left within 2 years you were forced to cash it in, and because it was only a couple of hundred £ each time (if you were lucky), you couldn't put it into another scheme. Thatcher changed the whole business ethos into dog-eat-dog and I had to change jobs several times through redundancy. The 1980's and 1990s were periods of boom and bust and at one point we were paying 15% interest on our mortgage. When that was our major outlay, there was nothing left for saving or pension provision.

Re baby boomers in general: I always feel that I was born too late to really benefit (1953) I resent the impression that we are all comfortably-off with generous final salary pensions.

My friend born in 1947 retired at 55 on such a pension, and (given average life expectancy) by the time she dies she will have been getting that pension for longer than she worked. My mother has also been getting hers for 30 years. No wonder final salary schemes are unsustainable. By the time I was allowed to join a pension scheme, I didn't appreciate just how big the gulf was between public and most private company schemes.

Re baby boomers in general: I always feel that I was born too late to really benefit (1953) I resent the impression that we are all comfortably-off with generous final salary pensions.

That's not the assumption at all. Just that they are so so much better off than someone of the same situation now.

Baby boomers aren't all rich, but they are richer than if they had the same life starting a few decades later.

Nickiredcar, I do agree in principle with your last post, and want to reiterate what others have said. It's the way it has been implemented that's the issue, not that equality in itself is bad.

The 2011 Act which speeded up the implementation also increased SPA for both men & women. The maximum length of the delay for a man is one year. Some women have to wait an extra 18 months (and that was adjusted as a "concession" from the original timetable of 2 years). Is that "equality"?

*HildegardCrowe Sat 08-Dec-18 01:17:28

The fact that women have been historically underpaid/disadvantaged is irrelevant to this argument. I just can't relate to this sense of being treated unfairly at all and consider myself fortunate to know that a full pension is coming my way at 66 (5 years time). And I've worked every single year of my life since I graduated at 21 apart from 6 months maternity leave.*

How would you feel if in 2 or 3 years time you were told that you'd have to wait till you were 68? This is the position many of the 1950's women are/were in.

People are deluded if they think men and women will ever be truly equal.

Until men can bear children, there will always be inequality. Women are now expected to do everything a man does career-wise, plus be the primary parent. All men have to do is have a job.

Baby boomers aren't all rich, but they are richer than if they had the same life starting a few decades later.

and I was trying to say that I'd probably have been even richer had I been born even 5 years earlier.

You seem to have missed my point about generalisations being bad. There are plenty of women of my age who aren't rolling in it, because they got the worst of every bad situation.

Things have been going steadily worse since Thatcher. McMillan was right when he said (1957) "You've never had it so good". Shame it was unsustainable.

There have been a lot of changes since 1950 in the way women lived and worked, the married woman's ni contributions, opting out of serps cock up (1980s), and now date moves. It seems that past mistakes in managing the state pension pot have now caught up with thousands of women who are paying the price for pension initiatives of the past. Life changes over time and each government has changed or introduced changes. You would not believe the pressure we were put under to opt out in the eighties only to find that was a balls up to and for us all to opt back in when the pot was empty.

I am one of those affected by the changes - Fortunately, I saw how powerless women were in the 50 and 60s and swore that I would be able to support myself.

I was very much going against the grain. Most of the family thought it was disgraceful that I was going to University. It was a total waste of time because I would only marry and might need a small job for pin money at the most.

When I married, I had to drag my husband along to the bank every time we wanted to do anything, while he could do things unaccompanied. Even though I was the one with the steady, higher paying job.

We were all advised not to bother paying into company pensions. In fact, you weren't even allowed to contribute if you were part time. It was assumed that women would be provided for under their husband's pension. In fact, I ended up with absolutely no cover under my husband's pensions. While he would have been comfortably off under mine.

I managed to navigate the period without disaster personally. But, anyone who went along with expectations at the time will be in deep trouble now.

*and I was trying to say that I'd probably have been even richer had I been born even 5 years earlier.

You seem to have missed my point about generalisations being bad. There are plenty of women of my age who aren't rolling in it, because they got the worst of every bad situation.*
And if you were born 10 or 20 years later things would have been much woorse.

Waspi women aren't the luckiest boomers, but they are still part of a very lucky generation compared with the generations before and after them.

Not all rich, but richer than someone of the same situation born layer.

Richer shouldn't be mistaken for rich, of course they all aren't rich.

I remember 15% interest rates, no maternity leave and no maternity pay.

Those were the days...

Of you have been told all your working life that your retirement age will be 60 and all of a sudden it is 66 (or older) of course you would be annoyed.
I am quite lucky. I got my state pension at 61 years and 10 months, so annoying but it could be worse. I have friends who won't get theirs until 66 and I am not surprised they aren't happy.
I don't know anyone who doesn't support the equalization of the pension age, but it is being done over a much shorter period than in most countries and with much less advance warning.

@Ladymargarethall but knowing the retirement age is going to keep going up is reality for most workers now. It will be 67 in 10 years, and who knows, probably 75 or something in 30.

Jimdandy - The first changes to the pensions were announced in 1995. At that stage we were told of a staggered introduction which meant I would get my pension when I reached 62 years and 8 months. That was fine BUT 15 years later all that changed and all that had reached a certain age would have their pension at 65. a year later it went up to 66. That is the problem. They changed the goal posts for people in their late 50s which didn't give them time to make other provisions.

Yes, I understand that, but people already know so can make contingency plans. The WASPI women did not know, which is their complaint.

My post was in reply to Milly

Yes, I remember 15% interest rates! It wasn't the fact that they were 15% - it was the sharp rise to 15% that caused the pain. Most people had not planned on having to pay interest that high, and a lot of mortgages defaulted.

I also remember no maternity pay.

I was in an industry that was almost all male. But HR was almost all female. It was striking that as soon as maternity pay was introduced, the whole HR department was pregnant. They had all been holding off starting a family in the hope....

but knowing the retirement age is going to keep going up is reality for most workers now. It will be 67 in 10 years, and who knows, probably 75 or something in 30.

Any sensible people entering the workplace today should be planning for and expecting there to be no state pension at all when they retire. Hence workplace pensions which are inevitably going to replace state pensions.

At the end of the day, pensions have been a foul up for many decades, both private, state and public sector. Far too many unrealistic promises made by politicians just to gain popularity/votes.

Can't blame them - I did the same.

Yes, I remember 15% interest rates! It wasn't the fact that they were 15% - it was the sharp rise to 15% that caused the pain. Most people had not planned on having to pay interest that high, and a lot of mortgages defaulted.

They hit 15% but only for a very short period of time. Average rates in the 80s were far lower. It's one of those urban myths that has somehow become a truth!

@Badbadbunny It was the volatility that was painful, not peak value.

It would be possible to adjust to any reasonable interest level eventually.

It catches people out most painfully when it changes rapidly.

Agree 15% is an urban myth, it happened at the same time as massive wage inflation so it's always massively overstated the affects.

No one wants to hear they had a much easier life just because of when they were born, they want to make out how hard out they have it and they got everything through their own work.

I don't have a problem with men and women qualifying for their pensions as the same age BUT it should have been implemented in a longer time period.

When I was informed the first time that I wouldn't get it until I was, I think, 62 I was perfectly ok with it. Then it changed again so now I will be 2 months short of 66. I didn't have that much notification (and lots of women say they had none) and my circumstances were such that it was not really possible to save.

I left school at 16 and started work. I have worked for 46 years with practically no break as I have no children. I have always paid a full stamp. So I have more than enough years paid NI.

Yet people who have barely worked will still get a pension plus pension credit.

I am lucky that my DH still works full time (he is younger than me) as I cannot work because of ill health but am entitled to no benefits as supposedly not ill enough! I don't drive and am furious that I have to wait to get my bus pass.

!5% interest rates were fairly short lived each time they hit that level but 9% was fairly common.
Also despite houses being cheaper, there was a long wait for a mortgage. It was common to have to wait 2-3 months for a mortgage to be considered. Building Society insisted on seeing all pass books and told you how much deposit you would pay.
As I said previously I had a letter in 1995 but not afterwards and my state pension ages changed by more than 18 months, in 2011.

Woolyheart your post rings true.

The expectations were not even unspoken. It was all there in company policies. You were the pioneer type!

So I do feel this small age slice of women have been treated shabbily.

I sometimes hear vague talk of "what society expects" and think it's not at all obvious that that's the only way to be from what I see. However societal expectations AND the underlying official systems in place were so much more along tramlines than many people today seem able to imagine.

agree the 15% interest rate was fairly shortlived but for most of the late 1980's & 1990s I'm pretty sure we were paying at least 7%, and the rate was in double figures for at least 3 years. As others have pointed out, it was the volatility that was the main problem. I hear screams when the rate goes up 0.5%... imagine how you would cope with a 5% rise.

I don't remember massive wage inflation, but there was a steep rise in house prices in the late 1980's due to the chancellor changing the system for tax relief on mortgages so everyone was frantically trying to beat the deadline. It wasn't easy to get a mortgage and many building societies had monthly quotas for how much they could lend out.

About 6-7 is the average for interest rates.

They may be low now, but the prices of houses are astronomical so it was still cheaper back then to buy a house based on affordability of wages.

I do prey that interest rates rise as them being close to zero just shows how the economy is on life support with very dodgy foundations.

With job automation gearing up and many white collar jobs at risk I do wonder who is going to be paying for the state pensions in the future.