Who is going to pay for your state pension/ care in old age?

[itsadlibitum]

Apparently birth rates are falling, and this is putting future pensions (and I would imagine general tax income) in jeopardy as the population will proportionally age.

What's the solution? Should we just write off our paid for "right" to a state pension and state support for care in older age?

Does this change your view on public investment in supporting people to have children if you otherwise thought this was a personal choice and you should support/ pay for your own children?

AIBU to think that NI contributions for "pension" is essentially government mandated mis-selling and state pension will go out the window in the next few decades?

Maybe people should have an option to opt out of NI and pay it into a private pension instead?

I do think the government should do much more to encourage higher birth rates amongst certain groups yes. Generally people act like their parents so it would be good to encourage higher birth rates amongst those who add most to British society and the economy.

Surely that’s an age thing?

Are you planning on 20 years of ill health before you die? Most people are pretty healthy and chipper until their 70s nowadays.

I am not planning anything of the sort. That is the official government figures, it's not something I am listing as an "ideal". And they don't really align with your assertion of most people in their 70s being healthy and chipper.

@Hellohelga what are you basing this on? Do people just make stuff up!

www.theguardian.com/society/2024/oct/07/baby-boomers-living-longer-but-are-in-worse-health-than-previous-generations

Im saving a lot in my personal pension, plus have a buffer of cash savings. Im assuming its on me to fund my retirement

i retired when I was 67, I was exhausted and thought that maybe some of my former energy would return but sadly it hasn't, reckon I am just bloody worn out! Also although of course I no longer pay NI i do pay income tax, council tax and VAT so am not a complete scrounger! My mum died two years after she retired and those two years were a time of very poor health and my dad died before he retired. Neither of them even saw 65 so I do think I am lucky. It must be a worry to be young today and live with such a high cost of living and uncertaintity about the future, again I think I have been lucky in some ways though every generation has its challenges

I was born “late November back in ‘63” to murder a lyric. I don’t know what I am. On the cusp?

On the cusp/very late boomer apparently - GenX starts 1965

The previous generation to me , I’m early 70s, walked and cycled a lot, ate simpler foods, went through years of rationing and died early as there weren’t the medical advances there are now. These were the ones that didn’t die in the war. So we are unhealthier partly because we are being kept alive after heart ops, diabetes, lung problems etc etc

@JaneySeemore helarh life expectancy would be defined as

few or no co-morbidities such as:
hypertension
coronary heart disease
asthma/copd
diabetes
AF
raised cholesterol
obesity

Physical limitations-
arthritis
reduced mobility as a result of either sedentry lifestyle or equally highly physical job.

As a healthcare professional i can 100% tell you that a good proportion of the population above 60 are not in good health and will not be able to continue working until 68. Certainly not in front line services such as retail, health, public sector, health care.

Given there will be pockets of the country (affluent areas that this is skewed by), however we will see a HUGE increase in years to come of sickness benefits as simply people will not be fit enough to work.

etc so the idea of paying out more for others to have babies while not getting anything ourselves is a ‘hell no’.

but those people you speak of were surely once babies too & would have been educated etc so did get something out of the system.

Er — is it not the law now that an employer with more than a certain number of employees (is it 10? Not sure.) must by law provide an occupational pension scheme for said employees, to which both worker and employer contribute?
So in future almost everyone will be entitled to an occupational pension which will probably be payable at around 65. And to which you can make additional voluntary contributions if you wish and can afford to.
They are also much more likely to be fully portable so if you change jobs you can take your pension contributions with you to put into your next employer’s scheme.
So IMO anyone who opts out of a workplace pension needs their head examined.

My MIL's the same (actually, she hasn't worked for 65 years).

She gets pension credit, full housing benefit to cover the rent on the council house she brought her family up in, and 100% council tax reduction. She has more disposable income than I do, and doesn't have to panic about how much it's going to cost every time something in the house needs fixing.

I started work in 1972, and retired last year when I was 70.

Er — is it not the law now that an employer with more than a certain number of employees (is it 10? Not sure.) must by law provide an occupational pension scheme for said employees, to which both worker and employer contribute?

They are pretty crap though with low employer contributions.

Immigration will have to sort it - most of the populations of Africa and India are young.

Agreed . My last company had a shockingly low pension contribution and the pension at the end was minimal but they’d done the bare minimum without ever telling staff it wouldn’t provide a nice standard of living . Some staff just took the view they’d done a pension so that was that . They’ll get a shock when it matures .

‘Healthy’ life expectancy was meant, I think.
But I wouldn’t have thought most people nowadays go into a decline once they hit 62. There are plenty of reasonably fit and lively 70-odds and even some 80-odds about, quite a few of them are running around after Gdcs, while adults dcs work.

Again, the government figures say otherwise.

What is low, though? I seem to recall at my last job the usual employer contributions was six percent of your monthly salary, the same as the employee’s contribution, and this would give you a final pension of two thirds of your final salary on retirement, after something like 35 years service.
And as I said if you change jobs your pension contributions could be ported into your new employer’s scheme.

I haven’t ever paid into a workplace pension, to be fair. I was advised that, by the time it was compulsory enrollment, it wasn’t worth it

My mum is 97, my granny's both sides one died at 91 the other was 88. My mum worked as a nurse until she was 70 years of age. Not in a hospital but in nursing.home, when staffing was good. She couldn't do it now. I also could not work as a nurse until im 70 its so challenging now mentally and physically. Im exhausted now and im 60. There are certain professions which should have an adjusted retirement age imo. As disagreeable as that may be to some. What the answer is I dont know. I live alone , havent got a second income coming into my home or the tax benefits that married couples get. Im struggling now, dont know how im going to get to retirement age.

YANBU and virtually every western government is essentially bankrupt.

Don't think about that too hard; it is too scary.

I think it is Norway who is the only one who isn't!