Why was the state pension age lower for women?

[pinksocks3]

I can't find a simple answer to this question. Why was the pension age 60 for women and 65 for men until recently?

Was it because women were seen as weaker and unable to work after 60?

This is interesting.
I asked my Gran this once, as a child and she said it was because a woman usually had 2 jobs, the paid one and the one of bringing up children etc, whereas a man only has one.
This answer must have been in the late 1970s/early 1980s when I asked her.

I wonder if the reporter from the 60s would have found the same results of he's asked the women! 😁Self reported activity is not necessarily reliable.

I would argue that most women do still marry someone a bit older than them. Personally I think it's unfair women's pension age has jumped up 7 years and men's only 2. I think 65 for women and 67 for men would have been perhaps fairer, at least for a while. Although I'm sure many will disagree! I also think it's true that if there are elderly relatives to care for, then the woman is more likely to do it. Likewise caring for GC. But of course we're just meant to do it all now.

I'm in my 50's and a couple of my similar aged friends spend long hours at work every day, then spend most evenings and weekends caring for elderly parents. Even if it's just something like taking shopping round or whatever, it's still time they need to find. One of them also has to juggle that with a teen DD. I couldn't do it in all honesty.

I'd be surprised if any woman who has any other options would choose to work full time right up until 67. Part time sure or if it's a job they absolutely love. But most of us are being forced into it.

This is exacltyvright

but also came more into effect with women paying reduced”stamps” ie reduced NI contributions . These were paid where a wife would piggy back off her husbands state pension and get a smaller amount (like they’d get 1.5 a man’s full pension )
remember even back in 1950 many women were forced out of jobs when they got married. My mother was one. Let alone when they had children.
the husbands salary was seen as the only meaningful and reliable income into households. Wife’s salary wasn’t taken into account for mortgage borrowing until 1970! Hence why house prices rocketed

so from state point of view wives were appendages to husbands . They were jointly taxed and HE would be require to sign the tax return. Wives reduced pensions were then paid at 60 as it was reckonised they’d usually be younger. Problems not have worked for years anyway . And saved state bailing couple out with other benefits.

@EmpressSoleil I think 65 for women and 67 for men would have been perhaps fairer, at least for a while.

In what way would that be more fair?

Re the video being a case of ‘unreliable witness’……So true! Ime not at all unusual for men to think they’ve done tons around the house, if they’ve moved their plate off the table and put it in the sink, and maybe made a cup of tea not just for themselves.

My FIL was born in the early 30s and he changed nappies, cooked, took the kids out for the day, made them toys/activities and he worked full time as well.

Similar - my dh retired last year at 66. I'm 59 and have to wait until I'm 67. It's not fun!

@Coffeerum

Because a 7 year jump for women and only a 2 year jump for men also wasn't fair.

They were jointly taxed and HE would be require to sign the tax return.

Not quite. The husband signed the tax return because his wife's income was regarded as his for ta purposes. It changed some time in the 1980s I think.

My FIL was born in the early 30s and he changed nappies, cooked, took the kids out for the day, made them toys/activities and he worked full time as well.

Hmmph. This reminds me of the time my DH said "I've tidied up for you." I pointed out to him that since everything he had put away was his own, tidying up after himself would have been more correct.

@Appleofmyeye2023
Missingthesea · Today 11:54

Apparently it was because women were typically a few years younger than their husbands, so a younger retirement age for women meant they could retire at around the same time as their husbands and were therefore likely to be available to "look after" them 😬🙄
This is exacltyvright

Sorry that is nonsense
The contributory pension was introduced in 1925. A higher rate was paid for couples if both were 65. As most men typically had younger wives it meant hardship for them until the wife reached 65. As a result the age for women was amended in 1940 to 60.
http://www.web40571.clarahost.co.uk/statepensionage/SPA_history.htm

This is a very good point. Who looked after the children, as a matter of interest?

I do think that white collar and professional jobs were treated differently, probably because women doing those jobs were in direct competition with men, whereas the kind of jobs you describe were women's jobs and very low paid. My mother-in-law went into the Civil Service straight from school in the 1930s, doing routine clerical work, and didn't marry until she was in her 30s. In spite of her long service, she had to leave the job as soon as she married, because that was the rule. She was able to get another job in an office in the City of London, which she gave up when pregnant. Much, much later the Civil Service did a special recruitment drive trying to get some of these women back, and she returned part-time until she retired.

Meanwhile, my mother trained as a primary school teacher and was able to stay in the job after she married, but again had to give up when pregnant. There was no maternity pay back then and no maternity leave - those didn't come in until the 1970s. She might have been able to negotiate some unpaid leave from her job so she could have gone back soon after I was born, but a substantial chunk of her salary would then have had to be spent on a childminder, and those were in short supply and totally unregulated. Day nurseries were mostly unknown outside the big cities, and thin on the ground there. She started supply teaching a few years later, then part-time teaching, then full-time, then redundancy/early retirement in her mid 50s (mid 1980s).

A woman with a husband was expected to be supported by her husband. This was double-edged - not only did it mean some women were unable to build a career, but it made life very tough for the valiant few women who did battle on (who would have included widows, divorcees and women whose husbands were unable to work). Men got promotions and pay increases because they needed to support their families. Women were assumed to be working for pin money.

Not really surprising that the sex discrimination extended to a different pension age as well.

Yes! This used to annoy me immensely. A man's income and tax affairs could be his secret, but his wife's had to be reported to him for his tax return.

Because a 7 year jump for women and only a 2 year jump for men also wasn't fair.

Do you also think it was unfair when the Equal Pay Act came in, that women got a considerable increase in their wages whilst men got no increase at all?

Considering that men generally live four years fewer than women on average, I don't think this argument can really be construed as in any way fair.

Yes, my mum was born in the mid fifties and I know from how she's described her childhood that her dad definitely did jobs round the house, and also all the outdoor jobs (and my grandparents had a decent sized and meticulously maintained garden so there was a lot to do outdoors). He never cooked, but then my gran was so protective of her kitchen that neither did my mum - she left home not knowing how to cook.

I bet it was something like that!

^ This.

Many women didn't qualify for a full pension in their own right anyway, as they had been paying 'reduced stamp' national insurance contributions all their working lives, and were expected to rely on their husband's pension.

I bet it was something like that!

Yes, I'm sure the official line was it was so that couples with an average age gap could 'enjoy retirement together' - but I think we can all read between the lines!

@Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g

"This is a very good point. Who looked after the children, as a matter of interest?"

Extended family, neighbours, or they just played out until parents got home (on bombsites in my experience as a 70s child...). The idea that it was just the parents who had responsibility for their own children would have been considered bizarre - children were the joint responsibility of a community. I think the whole idea of the 'nuclear family' being solely responsible for their own children only really started to take place in the 1970s and accelerated in the 1980s with the demise of traditional working class communities and the rise of the culture of individualism.

Yes, I'm sure you're right, but also there were far less extended families living close enough to each other to help out in that way. It's a long time since I read Family and Kinship in East London, but that explained very clearly what a devastating effect housing policy had on working class communities and what a problem it was for parents with young children that they were allocated a new council house a long, long way from anyone else they knew from the old neighbourhood. In previous times they'd have stayed with one set of parents or another relative after the wedding and waited till a flat or house came up nearby. All the relatives and family friends would have been putting in a word for them with the rent collector. When children came along, there would have been lots of help and support.

We never had any of that because my parents lived a long way from family for most of my childhood and then I moved a long way from them to go to university and didn't go back. My parents-in-law died before we had children. We managed, but I'd have liked my children to see more of their wider family.

My parents were part of the exodus from the East end in the late sixties and we were allocated a council house a long way from family but everyone else was in the same boat so people did look after each others children and additionally we were pretty self sufficient from about age 9 so looked after ourselves.

It’ll be some sexist logic like women need to retire earlier than their husbands because they’re weaker and can’t work as long… or they need to get their homes ready for 5 years before their husband retires. There is lots of sexism on pensions.

I work in the industry and there’s a tranche of pension called pre 88 GMP and male member’s have a 50% spouse pension and female member’s have no spouse pension because obviously if a women is working and accruing a pension she can’t possibly be married as well!!!

@Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g yes, the effects that so-called slum clearance had on working class community cohesion is well-documented - it was almost as bad as the loss of traditional industries. If you go to Hull people rank the clearance of Hessle Road as being as devastating as the cod wars.

My dad did too! Born 1931. He also ironed extremely well and cleaned and polished all our shoes every evening. National Service for you.

I miss him.