Women and pensions

[Gin96]

AIBU to think women are short changed when it comes to pensions? The amount of women I speak to who don’t have a private pension. A lady I work with is 67, she only has a state pension and can’t afford to retire. Ladies in there 40’s with no pension at all, they don’t think it’s a problem as the state will provide for them. Why are we not taught in school about finances and pensions? As I get nearer to retirement age I am suddenly taking an interest and it is a mind field trying to work it out.

There’s £100K difference yes - but note that I was giving a figure from age 67, to go alongside state pension. If you want to retire at 60, there’s most of the £100K difference covering 60-67!

My mum & Dad are in the 70s and it’s my Mum who has the better pensions, they continued to pay into hers plus private ones each. Mum also got a small company pension, Dad was self employed so not so good. But they are doing ok now, but I constantly hear how lucky their generation are with lots of disposable income etc, however they really struggled when we were kids, I remember having no heating on, holidays were rare and everything including Christmas presents were second hand. Saying that, my childhood was magical. And my DPs deserve the life of moderate luxury they now have.

There are a few women who adopted to pay reduced national insurance contributions when they married and did not understand the long term implications of this and also did not have paid employment (or very low paid jobs) so effectively no pension of their own. If they then divorced would lose the financial protection of their husband and would then have to claim means tested benefits. Most younger women now will be saving and paying in for their own futures and in general are now more financially aware.

The pension changes were not brought in fairly. My hairdresser was born the year before me. She got her pension ages 62. I have to wait until I am 65 and 10 months.

@NationalAnthem if you are a company officer including company secretary there are no minimum wage requirements. It is actually more tax efficient for your DH to contribute to your pension directly rather than pay you first and then you contribute.

@allthegoodusernameshavegone that's often ignored. Oddly when historians have looked back at the best decade for families in the 20th Century they frequently chose the 1970s. Anyone who knows anything about that decade knows it was not all roses.

@mydogisthebest however they did the pension changes it wouldn't be fair.

I’m really shocked about them picking the 1970s cola. My memories are the 3 day week, frequent power cuts and being cold!

Re: ‘fairness’ - I’m not sure what anyone really means by this. Women used to be able to get their state pension at age 60, so does that mean it’s ‘unfair’ on all women to have to wait til 66, 67 or older? Is it ‘unfair’ that men have to wait til they’re older? Is it ‘unfair’ that when I entered teaching I was paying a low percentage of my income into my pension and successive raises now mean I pay over 11% in, for the same pay out at the end?

The fact is, situations change. You cannot expect to have the same terms and conditions as decades ago when people live longer. It’s simple maths.

@ColaFreezePop My salary is a cost to the business and hence reduces our corporation tax liability and it's totally separate to my dividend payments ( I am not a director). We possibly have to bite the bullet and consult with a tax specialist - he's expensive but might save us making a rookie mistake and save money in long run.

This issue has been around for a while - it's not like we didn't get any notice - and women need to take responsibility for their own futures and not rely on their husbands or anyone else

There is always going to be some who might miss out due to a cut off but really - how do you expect the government to be able to implement things? We re all living longer so naturally the pension age needs to rise

We ll be lucky if the state pension even exists in 50 years at all

People who are near the threshold for any changes in policy are bound to feel hard done by (unless of course the change benefits them personally!) There’s no way of getting round that.

Different issue but same principle: DH and I had children just before the cohort where parents could access 15 hours a week free early years funding. We had to pay full nursery fees for all our children whereas a matter of months later and we’d have been much better off. And we also had the double whammy of short maternity leave, so with our first child (September born) we paid full nursery costs from 12 weeks old to a few weeks before her 5th birthday. If I was having her now, I could have a year off, pay nursery fees for a couple of years and then get almost half the week free. (and before anyone pipes up to say childcare used to be cheaper, no, it absolutely wasn’t. Relative to wages we paid at least as much hourly rate as now. No point whinging that it’s ‘not fair’ .... policies change and if you’re just the ‘wrong’ side of a cut off it’s inevitably going to sting a bit, but that doesn’t make it unfair.

What about people who rely on child benefit who might want 3 or 4 children but are now impacted by the cap? Is it ‘unfair’ because if they’d had their family five years ago they could have had more kids?

Tbh the changes in pension arrangements have been publicised at least as widely and over a longer time frame than many other policies which impact on families financially so I really don’t think it’s ‘unfair’, though I can totally get that it’s annoying - I’d rather get my pension at 60, or 65 too.

One thing I’ve always been sure to teach my kids though is not to rely on anyone else or the state. Relying on the state inevitably means you’re at the mercy of changes of govt and policy. Great if you have a partner to share the load, great if you can get a bit more from the state to ‘top up’ but I think it’s crazy to rely completely on it.

You still get child benefit for 3rd children and any thereafter, as long as your income is low enough to qualify. Not affected by the 2 child limit.

There are caps on child tax credits now, where there didn’t used to be. Ditto housing benefits. That’s my point. Policies change, and if you’re just on the ‘wrong’ side of the threshold when the changes are brought in, you’ll probably feel hard done by. It doesn’t mean it’s unfair there, or that the policy is wrong. There have to be cut off points.

I completely agree about there being cut offs and those on the wrong side will feel hard done by. When I read examples like “my sister is 18 months older but I retire 3 years after” then I’m sympathetic but ultimately think - you were unlucky, but I don’t support your campaign to change it.

For me, the issue is notice.
If aged 42 in 1995 you were told that your retirement age was moving from 60 to 63, then... shit, but something had to be done - suck it up.

I’ve been through the same with my company pension - in my 40s, several changes that left me paying twice as much for two thirds of the benefit, starting 2 years later, and based on an average not a final salary. I’ve lost a huge amount. But at 40 (as I was then) I changed my plans.

I think a lot of people are like me - limited sympathy for it changing.

Where I am sympathetic is the notice given. It’s a total and utter fuck up. My opinion (not shared by the most recent court ruling!) is that for a change so fundamental, individual letters should have been sent. In 1995 there should have been individual letters, and a huge press and TV campaign.

In our current changeable times, with the wonder of the internet too, it’s fair to put the onus on the individual to keep an eye on changes. But in 1995, why would a woman check themselves in case the age had changed? I do not think fair and clear warning was given.

But if you have notice in good time - the fact that you got unlucky with the cliff edge cut off? Harsh on you, but get over it.

Not all women are crap, I have had a pension from 21 and now at 53 my company pays 6% and I add in another 15%.
But I an fortunate I earn a reasonable amount with not very much outgoings.

Ellisandra broadly agree with your post, but actually I do think the changes to bring women’s pensions in line with men’s were pretty widely publicised. There have been a few comments on here from women complaining that they thought they’d get their pension at 60 but now have to wait til 67, which I find quite astonishing. I can understand more that some women might have expected it at 65, but then got pushed back to 66 or 67, but that’s no different to what’s happened with men. The main change to equalise pensions had been on the cards for years though.

I will never agree that the changes to pensions for women were fair. What would have been fair would have been the one change not two.

Also, despite what posters say, not that much notice was given and a lot of women did not get notification. Or do you think they are all lying?

I don't know how anyone can think that someone born one year before another gets their pension at 62 but the other person has to wait until almost 66.

By ‘the one change’ being fair, do you mean the change to equalise women’s pensionable age with men’s? (Completely agree btw- it was always an anomaly that men had to wait 5 years longer)

The other changes have affected men, not just women. Men who would have drawn their pension at 65 are now having to wait to 66 or 67 and of course that’s likely to rise further for both genders.

I can see why changes were brought in and have no issue with it being equal for men and women.

I was told (in a letter) the first time the age for my pension was changed from 60 to 62.

Later, there were hints in the press that this was changing again. I have been using the internet for decades, so looked this up online. The web site said that changes were in discussion but the outcome wasn't known yet. Apparently, if I had rung I might have been told how the changes affected me, but I didn't know that I needed to do that. Previous to this change, my employer had always kept me up to date on my official retirement date and there were no updates from that quarter. No specific information was available online several times when I checked - just generalisations that some changes were in discussion.

Similarly, on a private pension I was told that my pension was not protected when the company I worked for ran into problems, because I wasn't currently receiving a pension. This was stated online, and also in a letter that I had from the pension admin people. It later transpired that the pension WAS protected, but there had already been a damaging run on the pension scheme from people who had (unnecessarily) elected to take their pension early so that they would be 'protected'.

This is just to demonstrate that when changes happen to pensions, adequate and correct information is NOT always available to people. We make decisions based on the partial or incorrect information made available.

You just need a few of these inadequate communications to severely adversely impact your pension, whether you are male or female.

I’ve had a pension since I started current job 4 years ago. I’m 34. Previously I wasn’t allowed to join my old works scheme.

“New” work don’t have a pension scheme as it isn’t compulsory where I am.

I try and pay between 10-15% of my salary into it each year. It’s been tougher this year as am also saving for another lot of maternity leave.

In my opinion there are a lot of factors in play here. Firstly the state pension situation. Do i think it is unfair to women? No. We want equality of opportunity and with that comes equal responsibilities. So i see no reason why women should get their state pension earlier than men, in fact you could make the argument that men should receive theirs earlier due to a lower life expectancy. What is harsh is the pace that the change came in at. I take the earlier point about there always needing to be a threshold and those close will always feel aggrieved, but that doesn't help people affected.

Next is the workplace or private provision. So historically in my experience, men have tended to have better paying jobs for longer. They have tended to manage household finances more often that women. It is entirely logical that they will therefore have on average greater provision. Is this women's fault? No. Is it men's fault? Maybe, but it wont help to dwell on it.

So how to move forward? It needs to be multi pronged.

Education. In school, work, and from the government.

Communication. From the state for the state pension and from providers of employer/private arrangements. People need to know what they may get and when. They need to be kept up to date with the changes.

Ownership. Individuals must take responsibility to educate themselves on the basic rules and what can be provided.

End scaremongering. You still read so much rubbish demonising pensions. They are so flexible, tax advantageous, provide great death benefits. If you lose money it is because the underlying investment lost value. It doesn't make pensions inherently bad. Its just a tax wrapper.

Financial planning. The removal of commission as a means of paying financial advisers has taken so many normal people away from advice. Whether limited commission or government subsidies is the answer I don't know.

I think it's really unfair that so many women of that generation were excluded from pension schemes yet now it's all about equality, but the idea that people didnt know well in advance is implausible. I knew about it as a secondary school child in the mid 90s, and no fucker wrote to me to tell me. The issue is whether around 16 years notice for those first affected can be considered equitable bearing in mind the disadvantage many of them faced.

Good post Everanewbie

As this thread has progressed, I think there are two quite distinct things being discussed: 1) the issue of timing and communication, whereby some people feel they should have been told individually, with more clarity, about pension reforms, because they would then have made different decisions - eg: perhaps paid more into a private pension. I have some sympathy with that view.
2) some people are just complaining that it’s ‘not fair’ that they can’t get their pension at 60/62 etc while Mrs A along the road is only a bit older and can get hers. I can’t feel sympathy for that, because as has been said, cut off points have to happen somewhere. There would be loads of things I could have benefited from if my kids had arrived a year or two later (like free nursery hours) - but it’s a pointless argument to complain just because you’re the ‘wrong’ side of a threshold. Point 2) also implies that some people wouldn’t necessarily have planned differently and worked longer or chucked more money into a private pension anyway... they’re just pissed off that they can’t retire earlier than men any more.

Well the change should either have been to 66 or 67 or, as I was originally told, 62. Not 62 then increased especially when women born in certain years suffered the most.

By the time we were told of the second change and don't forget many women say they weren't, it was a bit late to do much about it. I have no private pension so there was really nothing I could do but hang on until I am 66.

I am lucky that my DH is younger than me and works because otherwise I would probably have to have carried on working myself. I actually gave up work because it was almost impossible to work due to health problems. Needless to say, I am entitled to no benefits at all. If I were not with my DH I would have had to somehow worked.

What many women are forgetting is the benefit of being allowed to work after the age of 60. Many forms had a compulsory retirement age. Women (and men can now chose to work beyonnd retirement). Yes, I have to wait longer for my state pension but in the intervening years I am allowed to work when previously I would not have been. I can earn tens of thousands more than the state pension for another seven years whilst still contributing into my occupational pension fund. That's a win/wi as far as I am concerned.

In some industries, people are still suspicious of anyone over 50, never mind over 60s. While you may be able to continue working in some fields, this is not universal. I was made redundant coming up to retirement age. In my industry, none of my colleagues over 55 or so managed to find similar employment, whether male or female.