To think that a lot of us will be in trouble when we retire...

[Fleetheart]

This generation seems very unlike the previous ones in that we take out loans for everything, buy holidays on credit, kitchens on credit, new clothes etc etc. And pension schemes are getting less and less generous. And most of us don’t understand them anyway. I’ve always earned well, but have split up from partner, so still have s lot on my mortgage, no savings, and really not very much in my random pension schemes most of which are money purchase schemes and won’t pay a lot. And I know many people of my age (mid 50s) who have no pension at all. And meanwhile the govt is being less and less generous. What will become of us all?

Financial security not sector. Bloody autocorrect!

Lots of people will be fucked in retirement. Will just have to keep on working.

The number of people still on interest only mortgages is incredible.

It’s a ticking time bomb.

Inheritance is the only answer for many

Inheritance is categorically not an answer. It’s something that should never be assumed or counted on.

And yes, if you have an interest only mortgage then obviously you’ll have to carry on working or hope you’ve made some money on the house and sell up. Though frankly anyone with an interest only mortgage must be nuts these days because interest rates have been at an all time low for a decade. If you can only afford to be paying the interest rather than paying off any capital you must have seriously over stretched yourself

I just don't like the way these discussions are framed around the assumption that everyone has careers that are worth making sacrifices over. A lot of work is pointless crap that you have to do just to avoid benefit sanctions or people's judgement.

I mean it was a choice, we could have paid for DD to do long hours in childcare so I could have continued to work. If I was one of those people whose mental health benefits from going out to work then it might have been worth it even though I'd be working at a loss. We chose not to and its a perfectly valid choice.

‘Pointless crap’ is a pretty judgemental way to describe work. If someone is doing it to put food in their kids’ stomachs and a roof over their head it’s hardly pointless.

There’s certainly a lot to be said for striving to achieve work which suits your abilities and interests, sure. But ultimately, work is a fact of life for adults, and it’s pretty dismissive to talk about it like that just because you have your own personal frustrations about not being able to work

If work doesn't pay enough for you to live on it is pointless.

Well, snuggy I’ll be honest you’ve lost me now.

You seemed to be complaining that you wanted to keep working but your employer was too inflexible so you couldn’t.

You then seemed to say you did have a choice but you didn’t think continuing working would be good for your mental health.

You then talk about jobs being crap and pointless: I don’t know if you’re referring to the job you used to do, but if so then that would suggest you never really wanted to carry on working anyway.

Anyway: Like I said this isn’t about personal situations, it’s a far greater issue than that about how men and women can balance their lives to have less inequality which I hope we can all agree is an outcome worth aiming for

I think what I'm getting at is that I don't like the assumption that us SAHMs are all victims and we could be liberated from being victims if we were able to work.

For some people work doesnt really help them. Many jobs dont pay enough for a person to make an honest living, give them choices or save enough for a pension. In this case it can be pointless to work.

For some people work might be too low paid to live on but beneficial to their mental health. This gives it a point.

For some people work might be well paid but too inflexible or stressful to peservere with when they also have children to consider.

For some people it's worth a bit of bother to stay in a job. For others it makes more sense to stop working for a period and pick it up later.

Discussions on this need to look at all different circumstances not just middle class women in well paid careers.

If i’m honest, I agree with you @Snuggybuggy. I worked my entire life, I was good at what I did and I was well paid but it was pointless. Nothing I did changed the world an iota for anyone. The people whose jobs aren’t pointless are in a minority - and most of them are grossly underpaid.

What was the job AlsoHuman? I’m intrigued that it’s something completely pointless!
Surely if it paid for the roof over your head and food on the table, and hopefully a decent pension for your financial security later on, then that’s not completely pointless?

Snuggy surely a second wage coming in will help families ?
The point is why is it so difficult? why is CC so expensive and workplaces so inflexible ?
As I said up thread Sweden has a brilliant family friendly policy with subsidised ,good CC .
No one is having a go at SAHM , if thats your choice.
What we are talking about is the lack of choice.

I did comms and marketing, ultimately at board level, in the public sector @Celaeno. Sure it had a point for me but it achieved fuck all for anyone else. It was in sharp contrast to my colleagues who were literally saving lives, often for far less money. I wish I’d spent my working life doing something that had some point.

I dont think as a society we really know what work is for.

I also dont think as a society we've made up our minds as to whether we actually want families to have both working parents in which case we need cheaper childcare, more flexible childcare and better options for school holiday like other countries. Or do we want SAHPs, schools and some jobs seem to expect them, in which case we need to place more value on bringing up children and caring with maybe some appropriate tax breaks.

That a shame AlsoHuman that you’ve got regrets. Not every job is literally saving lives though... people should be proud of doing other kinds of job, taking financial responsibility for themselves and their families and doing the job well.

I do think it’s important to aim for work which is as interesting and fulfilling as possible, simply from the point of view that work is a fact of life, you’re likely to do it for most of your adult life so why not aim for something that ideally more than just paying the bills. But of course just paying the bills matters too!

I’m in education so perhaps easier to see the ‘social usefulness’ of my work. But even so, it’s not all about ‘giving to society’ : a big part of work has always been about contributing financially to our home and life, alongside my dh, enjoying the social aspect of it - and of course, paying into my pension, which is where the thread began.

Yes, I get that. It’s not all work should be about for me. I’d have liked to have made a difference. My husband has, my mother did, so does my stepdaughter. I quite envy their return home at the end of the day, knowing they made the world a better place.

Snuggy in response to your post I’m very glad that in the U.K. we don’t live in a society which decides that one particular way is ‘better.’ I would hate to feel that ‘society’ is telling me I or my partner ‘should’ be at home (or ‘should’ be working.) It comes down to individual choice - within the parameters in which we have choice. It would certainly be a totally backward step to try to chase people back into feeling they ought to take on a certain role.

Society is changing rapidly - same sex couples in legal relationships now, more people transitioning and in less traditional set ups- and it would be terrible to try to pressurise people into specific roles.

I also think it’s beset with problems quite apart from the ethical side of it. If as you put it ‘society’ decides to make childcare so cheap and affordable that the expectation is that every parent works, you’d have couples who want one parent at home being up in arms about being ‘forced’ into the workplace. You said yourself that you didn’t want to return to your job because you didn’t feel it would benefit your mental health, so I can’t see how you could support society putting that sort of pressure on people.

I suspect I’m quite a bit older than you, so I’ve lived through the era when maternity rights were crap and paternity rights non existent. Believe me, society is far more supportive of choice now than it ever has been. I’m not saying it’s perfect - nowhere is- but I think society has come along in massive strides. When I think back to my grandmother (had to give up teaching when she married ) my mother (intelligent woman, no option to have a career because regulated childcare didn’t exist) I know I fared better in having choices than they did. And tbh my own dd and ds will fare better than I did- they’ll be able to have a year off in maternity leave, they can share leave, they can request flexible working ... all these things are hugely positive and I Hope society continues in that direction.

I think what I don't like is the current mixed message, ie that both parents should be working but we won't do anythiny to help them. Ideally it should be each family making a choice that suits them and I don't doubt that there has been some improvement over the years in terms of parental rights.

The modern workplace is odd. There seem to be whole industries where the pay is too low to live on. Obviously not everyone here can be promoted to managment. The gig economy seems to be spreading. I remember my first job was a permanent job with a contract but the next wave of recruits were all zero hours.

Working isn't necessarily going to mean making a living and having enough left at the end of the month to have enough to save for a pension or a rainy day. I mean I hear people talk about "cutting your cloth accordingly" and just want to scream that if you are on poverty wages you may well have no cloth to cut in the first place.

It's like we still have this Protestant work ethic that all work is good but that doesn't help people for whom working isn't really improving their lives.

I completely agree that NMW should be higher- no doubt about that.

What I have found is that salaries for skilled lower paid jobs have been stagnant for years. Fifteen years ago there was a large gap between my level of salary and a cleaner, that is no longer the case.
In terms of the idea of state pensions not existing, only the well off can make that a reality. You would need about a quarter of million to live in poverty for 20 years retired. It is simply not possible for most people.

I'm guessing automation is killing off a lot of the more semi skilled stuff. Didn't people used to think automation would liberate people? Doesn't seem to have worked that way for most folk.

It is middle class jobs that are being affected now. Semi skilled jobs that can be automated cheaply largely have been. I am sure some will still be, but it is the middle class that is shrinking rapidly.

And my job is not semi skilled, it is skilled. It is also dominated by women so low paid for skills.

The relevant factor is the increase in private renting.

It's harder to save money when you are low paid and you need to save more if your pension had to stretch to private rent.

Two things I would love to happen: an increase in NMW. There should be a far bigger differential between the lowest paid job and unemployment. And more social housing, housing association schemes, key worker housing etc

There are skills that are relatively easy to master and harder ones. We have a very small engineering business where we are often asked to fabricate bits of machinery that are already 50 years old. Fortunately, for now, we have a couple of elderly part-timers, who work for enjoyment and to supplement their retirement, whose artisanal skills are off the scale. What they can't make is mass production; it's not needed, but on one-off items, they can engineer or post-engineer a very adequate substitute. Not really sure how we shall replace their skills when they don't want to work any more. Nobody is being trained to fill their boots.