To think the back to 60 campaign is grabby

[Neaoll]

It's been known about for a long time that state pension ages would be equalised.

State pension is just unsustainable, it was never supposed to be something people claim for 20-30 years. Was for people that had a hard time so they didn't starve to death in their last few years. Now it's a top-up to the richest part of society. It should have been linked with life expectancy a long time ago.

I'm in my 40s and dont expect to ever get a state pension. I've been contributing to my private pension ever since I worked to support myself.

Suggesting that older women suddenly find a change of career in their 50's is a non starter.
Where are the jobs for an inexperienced 50+ yr old?

B&Q
M&S
Sainsburys
Tesco
Morrisons
WH Smith

Care homes
Nurseries
Garden centres
Offices
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Before criticising the "richest part of society" perhaps we should know a little of their working life history.
They worked through some of the highest periods of taxation; basic rate income tax was 33%; before VAT there was Purchase Tax at 33.3%.
There was no Maternity Pay nor Maternity Leave and no state funded free childcare.
A woman doing the same job as a man was paid a little over half the man's salary.
And as for the high interest rates being "for a small amount of time and on a low debt" - interest rates fluctuated between 8% and 17% between 1968 and 1990.

@Patnotpending

Bravo. Nailed it. Also many of us in 30s and 40s would not be able to have the careers we have without the help our mums born in the 50s.

You are making money out of women working yet you are saying here that they ought to be able to retire earlier

Yes I "make money out of women working", that's how employment works usually. I want them to be able to retire earlier and do all the things they want to do. I can employ others to fill their jobs!

it was being altered again and I was to work an extra 6 months. This happened as planned and I got my pension at 63.5 years old.
How people who are in their 50s now are saying it has come as a shock to them now I can't understand. The information is out there

Because it doesn't apply to YOU - aaaaah!
You got your pension at 63.5 - I'm 65 .2 and I don't get mine til in 65 and 11 months. This is the issue!!!!
Can't you see that not being informed that you have to wait another 2+ years might be an issue eg no income, no rent , no home.

B&Q
M&S
Sainsburys
Tesco
Morrisons
WH Smith

Care homes
Nurseries
Garden centres
Offices
Cafes
Hotels

Waiting for posts that say oldies are taking away jobs from the youth.

And while I'm here:

www.ft.com/content/e4141576-04eb-11e9-99df-6183d3002ee1

www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/age-discrimination-uk-work-old-jobs-women-equalities-committee-mps-a8450066.html

I remember seeing statistics somewhere showing that a fair amount of women of that generation did not work at all after having children. I know quite a few who didn't.

I can remember (in the late 1990s,) the women at work who were born just before 1960, being really smug, and laughing at me, (and other women born after 1st January 1960.) Because the women born before 1st January 1960 got to retire at 60 and the ones born after it, had to work another 5 years. They actually LAUGHED, and mocked us.

So when things changed, and these women were made to work to the same age (65-67,) it made me laugh at them. And I am not even remotely sorry.

Then again, I am all FOR women retiring at 60 (as we all work much harder in general through our lives than men,) but it has to be ALL WOMEN, not just the ones born before 1960. Many women born in the 1960s and 1970s, and 1980s, have worked much harder and had much more stressful lives than women born in the 1940s and 1950s.

No way in fucking HELL should anyone be working to the age of 70. That's a piss-take. Even being expected to work til 66-67 is a disgrace. People have very stressful lives these days, and many people are living on or below the poverty line.

The health of lots of people starts to decline at 60-63 or so. Despite some people claiming their great auntie Fanny who is 103 still runs a marathon a week, and their granny Annie is 111 and started work at 9 and has worked for 102 years.

The fact is MOST (hard-working) people are ready to retire at 60. Who the fuck wants to work past 60? Unless you have a blessed life, lots of money, and a very fucking easy job, you must have rocks in your head to want to work past 60.

Also, as has been said, many under 35s stayed in education til 21-23 y.o, and then had a 'gap yah,' whereas many women from the generation before started work at 16, and it was often manual labour, like a factory job. So you BET we deserve to bloody retire at 60!

And the comments from several posters about women wanting to retire so they can go on cruises that are funded by the millennials, just do one mate! Most women born in the 1960s and 1970s have worked fucking hard and paid a LOT of taxes over the years, so just bog off with your pathetic straw man shit. You millennials are funding FUCK ALL for us mate!

All women should retire at 60, and men at 63.

I know that's not gonna happen, but I can dream!

I'm 60 and I can see both sides.

Society was very different when I was a young'un. There was still endemic discrimination towards women. Most women (and men) were in work from age 16. It was unusual to go to university and even then, the occupations open to women were fairly limited. Women were expected to be more dependent on men for support. An expectation of retirement at 60 seems reasonable in that context. Many women wouldn't have had a full NI record anyway, so not entitled to full SP.

I've been luckier than many because I've had the benefit of a decent education and professional qualifications.

I frequently come across women who have never undertaken any paid work at all. Following a break, I struggled to get back into work myself but I am now working full time in a low paid job. Many women of my age are in poor health and lacking in up to date skills.

I have no wish to retire, partly because I am still useful and partly because I would feel guilty taking a benefit in good health.

it's very different now. Women are expected to work and contribute in terms of NI and tax. On the other hand, there is state support for children of those in low paid work which incentivises it. Maternity arrangements are better. 65 is looking younger and younger.

We've known for a while that the pension age is likely to increase, and a system which treats men and women differently was always going to come under scrutiny.

Unless, of course, we drop retirement age for men AND women to 60? .

I am 49. I stayed at home to have children, couldnt afford childcare, had a few part time jobs, but have no pension. I am looking at having to quit my part time job at the moment due to ill health. So I am very worried about the future

Unless, of course, we drop retirement age for men AND women to 60?

A great idea. Sad but predictable that government gleefully exploited the equality argument to save money.

Trewser

Do you run a company pension scheme?

Of course.

People in manual roles will just have to have a second career.

Aren't you a charmer.
Why should people in manual roles, i.e. the stalwarts propping up the service industries & our diminishing manufacturing base, have to work 2 jobs just because they were not as fortunate as you?

When men take career breaks to have and raise children, go back to work part time to combine work and childcare and then when they are int their 50s, go part time again to help care for their elderly parents, then we might have equality. When all that is absolutely a given so that employers realise those things might happen if they employ a bloke, then we can talk.

This, absolutely. Equality isn't just about numbers.

I trust none of you here mithering about women needing to take personal responsibility etc are ever going to ask your mothers or other older women in your family for help with childcare.

I used to feel the same as you in fact i felt quite strongly that if we want to be equal to men all things like this should be equal. But the truth is we are not equal to men definitely not financially and I now find myself in my mid 50s menopausal really struggling to work but keeping going and that's fine i have always supported mysekf and always will but finding my pension age has been shifted from 60 to 67 now seems much harsher.
More importantly I find myself coming towards the end of my working life where I have earned significantly less than men because women do! I've got a first class degree I've really enjoyed my working life but I haven't ever earnt what the guys I went to college with earnt. And that's because I devoted several years of my life to maternity: to bringing children up to being the one that left work to get children from school thatcarrued tge load.

I was disadvantaged by my biology all throughout my working career and a pension age of 60 would reflect that.
I have worked as hard but earned less and have saved less than the equivalent men of my age so really I've come complete 180` on this. My pension age should still be 60 and actually I think it's appalling that as women we still think the fight is to be equal, to be the same as men we really are never going to do that our biology disadvantages us we have different needs, wants aims and desires and we need to have that reflected somehow somewhere.

TalbotAMan all employees have to be registered with company pension but only since 2017! So not surprisingly some if the older employees opted out

@echt

A more equitable response might have been to lower men's retirement age to 63 and raise women's to that level too. But that would have been expensive.

Women have lost out far worse to austerity over the last 10 years than men:

fullfact.org/economy/austerity-women/

Patnotpending Great post.

Just reminding everyone that there is no actual compulsory retirement age, as some earlier posters seem to think there is.

I am nearly 70, not entitled to any disability benefit, because my DH is working!
That’s nonsense you can claim AA it’s not means tested.

Meh I think you'd have been annoyed to if people a few months older than you could get their state pension earlier. There needed to be a cut off, but perhaps people entering the workplace so it worked through. I don't think there will be one in a few decades which is why it's become compulsory to have one at work, so I'm saving saving saving.

PatnotPending I couldn't agree more. I was just making the point that somehow it's never about equalising down in this case.

Trewser

Well, if you want women to be able to retire earlier all you have to do is ensure that your pension scheme will give them enough to do so.

Of course, the same option will need to be available for men.

The point is that the men who missed out were not excluded because of their sex jingling. That is not to say there are no forms of discrimination other than sex discrimination, there are and some women suffer from them too. And just general disadvantage.

But the pension rise was and is specifically justified as being on the basis of equality between the sexes. The same pension age, but some women having been excluded from certain benefits because they're women while no men were due to their sex, isnt equality. The women with no occupational pensions because of sex discrimination are not in the same position as the men who have no occupational pensions for reasons other than sex discrimination.