to think if the state pension age of 68 is being brought forward.........

[JenniferBooth]

then they need to stop moaning and whining when there are no family members (read women)
to provide unpaid care so elderly relatives can be discharged from hospital
You cant have it both ways.

People who do a very physical job know they won't be able to so it until their mid 60s and plan accordingly. Unless they're farmers in which case they just keep going.

Anyone can retire at any age- if they can afford to. But the state cannot afford to sustain a non working population for 30 years on the off chance they may do some childcare or care for the elderly. Better it puts its money directly into childcare or social care.

Excuse me.

Im a very late boomer, sometimes Gen X. Youth unemployment was the highest it had ever been in the 80’s. It was terrible. So l didn’t ‘fall’ into a job. No one did. Lots of people had to do community schemes which paid ten quid a week more then the dole, so we’re unpaid care home assistants etc, just to get them off the register.

Precisely. I’m an early boomer who’s never voted Conservative in my life. Never have, never would. I was metaphorically dancing on Thatcher’s grave, I’d been looking forward to that for years. As for bloody Brexit …

Lateish boomer 1961 here. Never voted Tory in my life. Hated Thatcher and all she stood for.

Ah so good to know that the tories never got voted in for most of the post war period to present day... brexit never happened... and older people tend not to support the Tories or Brexit and it was all a nightmare....

Who gives a rolling fuck what individuals on here vote, the fact remains is that most older people vote tory and support brexit.

...it also not beyond the realms of possibility, you lot will vote them in again.

I think I need another coffee. I read that as you were a late bloomer and wondered what that had to do with it. I honestly read it 3 times before the penny dropped. Off to put the kettle on.

Who gives a rolling fuck what individuals on here vote, the fact remains is that most older people vote tory and support brexit

The fact remains that older people in the SE vote Tory. The north voted Labour, Andy Burnham, Tracey Brabajn, Oliver Coppard are northern Labour mayors. Wales voted Labour, Scotland votes SNP. So most older people don’t vote Tory.

Brexit was a vote of education.

Over 60% of over 60s voted tory. So it is a statistical fact that most older people voted conservative however you break the numbers down.

But loads of Boomers aren’t 60. And weren’t 60 at the time of the last election.

We voted to leave the EU which is a political union we never voted to join in the first place.

Teresa May tried to get compromise options through Parliament, but the Pro EU MPs vetoed all her suggestions as they still thought they could ignore the will of the people.

We could have had a compromise deal including more flexible trading (similar to the EEC which is what the public voted to join back in the 70s) and flexible worker movements, but it was the Pro EU MPs that blocked those compromises!

I think you’ll find it was the ERG that were the thorns in May’s side. 🤷‍♀️

Education played a part but age was an important factor too, though perhaps older people are generally less educated?

Thats not my experience but obviously older generations tended not to go to University or even get A levels, such was the amount of well paid employment about.
I'm 59, i walked out out of school at 16, 1979 and had the pick of jobs, as did everyone else.

Even in the 80s, i was on an govt employment scheme that paid £62 per week, JSA for a single person today is £77, i then went to college and was paid £600 per term for 2 years full time as a mature student, i then worked in 2 Sweden and France with fom.

Older generations had sooooo much more opportuinity than current ones and they should hang their heads in shame at their voting record or as one boomer couple said to me "we ve done our travelling, so of course we voted for Brexit"

Age and education were the major factors in the Brexit vote. The irony is that a pretty big chunk of the Leave vote is now dead.

Late boomer 1963. Lifelong socialist, trade union activist, involved in support for the Miners Strike. Despised Thatcher and all her works and have never voted Tory.

Apart from the fact that it is lazy rude ignorance to label an entire generation based on your own preconceptions, worth remembering that the "boomers" who came of age around 1980 did so in a very different world to the earlier cohort.

So which jobs did you have the pick of when you left school at 16 @Alexandra2001? Im a little younger than you but when I was young you needed more education for pretty much any career. And "working your way up" as a woman was still pretty much unheard of. As was continuing to work in any white collar position once your first child was born.

Ironically Brexit will provide great opportunities for people to experience what working life was like with little in the way of protection or regulation. I wonder whether they'll enjoy it as much as they think they will?

Wasn't there a poster campaign by Conservatives for the 1979 election called "Labour isn't working" with a picture of a long snaking dole queue? I can't remember the unemployment rate but it can't have been that low unless that was a very strange poster.

I know I struggled to get a job in the mid 70s and a couple of friends who were leaving uni with B.Eds couldn't get jobs as teachers and never went into teaching as by the time the job situation improved they had settled in other careers.

Maybe it varied round the country.

Wasn't there a poster campaign by Conservatives for the 1979 election called "Labour isn't working" with a picture of a long snaking dole queue?

There was. The irony was the unemployment rate rose to the highest since the 1930s at the zenith of Thatcher’s rule. It hit 14% in 1982.

@ArseInTheCoOpWindow Workfare (which is what it was) was still only paying £10 a week more than the dole in the 90s Until Labours New Deal which was £15 a week more than the dole. Im mid Gen Xer 1973

Brookside had a YTS storyline in the early 80s.

As the character grew olderand left school, the writers used storylines to comment on life in Thatcher's Britain. Unemployment was a serioussocial issue, especially in a dock citysuch as Liverpool, andGrant's character struggled to find work. Eventually he took a position as a painter & decorator throughthe recently introduced YTS scheme,the writers depicting the excitement and later despair when Grant'sparticipation failed to lead to a full-time job to great effect.

adoscobblestoneblog.blogspot.com/2012/05/classic-brookside-remembering-damon.html

I left school in 1980 and got a job as a trainee accountant, taking firstly A levels and then professional exams, and ultimately qualifying in 1988. I worked at 3 different places over those 8 years, and in all three, there were women at all levels, from trainee through to seniors/managers and partners. Yes, the women in qualified/senior roles were a minority, but they were there.

In the 90's it was more evenly matched between men and women, and in the noughties, I started to see firms with a majority of women in manager/partner level roles.

Obviously, I don't know what it was like in the 70s as I was still at school, but the fact that there were manager/partner level women at firms I worked at in the 80s suggests that there were women trainees in the 70s as you're typically looking at 10+ years to get to partner level!

As for pregnancy, there was no thought in the 80s that pregnant women wouldn't be returning to the workplace after their maternity leave. I can't remember anyone not returning. A few came back part time, but pretty sure they all came back.

As for pregnancy, there was no thought in the 80s that pregnant women wouldn't be returning to the workplace after their maternity leave. I can't remember anyone not returning. A few came back part time, but pretty sure they all came back.

They were lucky to get it. There was no statutory maternity pay or obligation to provide maternity leave until 1999. That famous supporter of women’s rights, Iran, did better than us until then. In 1999 my son was 24.

www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/features/the-timeline-maternity-leave-2113236.html

As for pregnancy, there was no thought in the 80s that pregnant women wouldn't be returning to the workplace after their maternity leave. I can't remember anyone not returning. A few came back part time, but pretty sure they all came back

I started working in the 80’s. I hardly remember any women coming back. A lot were sacked and if you had children you were viewed as not being able to be part of the ‘work work work’ and ‘work above everything’ culture of the 80’s.

l got pregnant in the 90’s. 3 months crap maternity pay.

And the amount of times l was asked if l was ‘intending to have children’ at interviews

The prevailing thought in the 80’s was you couldn’t do your job if you had children.

Education is a factor in Brexit? Considering we joined what became the EU in 1973, a hell of a lot of the "nasty racist thicky" leave voters were therefore educated whilst we were members.

But everything was better under the EU of course.

I don't think I was ever asked if I was going to have children, mine born from early 70s to late 80s. I was given paid leave for a day a week for 4 years, plus course fees and books paid, when I had two kids and again no issue about plans for children.

My employers were very flexible e.g. I had a week booked off as child going into hospital for an operation, due to chest infection operation was cancelled so I got him settled, probably my mum looking after him, and went into work at lunchtime and said I didn't need the week off and no questions were asked and I just rebooked when we got the new date.

When I became senior hr manager in another organisation I tried to introduce the same sort of policies, some old managers resisted but eventually we became a very family friendly employer.