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

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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?

Sorry misread, thought the suggestion was to means test pensions that way. Ignore my comment.

Only if they have to go into a care home. If the care is at their own home, they pay if they have over £23,500 in savings.

I read somewhere that getting the equivalent of a state pension would require a pension pot of £500k ish. Most people would need to pay in for their whole career on that, and have a good salary with good employer contributions.

Wow! That’s crazy! I guess that’s the answer this 30-40 years notice 😳

Also Japan has been planning for years, we have just ignored the issue

Who said £12k? If you're able to pay into a private pension, you should. It's not rocket science. Every little helps.
Or, should we just keep paying into NI for pensions at a state level and cancel private pensions?

Your post:

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?

1. Yes, we should write off paid for "right" to state pension unless there are reasons like disability and women that will need it. I'd be happy to keep paying NI to help the most vulnerable in society that need it but I'm not happy to keep paying NI for a pension I will likely never get.
2. Government mis-selling is exactly what it is. So many PP on this thread aren't event factoring in a state pension in their retirement plans because the goalposts keep moving, primarily impacting women.

I expected to fund my own retirement. If you want control of your life you have to control your finances not rely on a constantly changing government

It was in response to the notice to end or means test the state pension. Lots of people have private pension savings but factor in the state pension in their overall figures. If you are going to remove it you need to give them the time to make that up.

I don’t mind paying for my own retirement and care home, but it might be nice if the government had organised a state run care sector by then so we don’t get price gouged by the private equity firms for attending. It’s like private nurseries and dentists etc. they subsidise the piss poor amounts they get from the state by price gouging those that go private. I just want to pay for the cost of care homes, note the cost of care homes + a private equity boss’s multimillion pound bonus.

were in the same state with specialist schools and children’s care aren’t we? The state gave up providing it but there’s still a legal duty to provide so they are relying on private equity run companies which charge an exorbitant amount as they know the state have no other options.

My life has not been comparable to my mum's either, because in the 1960s they could buy a house for 2 times the average yearly wage.. while most of us are now wage slaves to our mortgage.

I think:

a) I won't get a state pension because it'll be means tested.
b) we'll eventually realise that we need more immigration because they're the ones who do take care jobs.

On point a) I don't care that my tax goes on others. That what it's for. We're net payers of tax and don't get some of the tax benefits others do (e.g. tax free childcare), the pension is another one of those I think.

For me, on point b) increasing immigration is massively preferable to me than trying to encourage people to have more kids. Having kids disproportionately affects women. Women shouldn't feel they owe society children. Plus a declining population is much better for the world in general.

Certainly not when people stop having kids that will be paying their NI to pay for us.

I thought that the population is increasing ?

Ideally, yes. In practice it can be quite difficult for people to achieve. If you work a minimum wage job, or even if you earn a median wage, you are unlikely to have much spare money right now to divert to your pension. I expect higher earners are worried less about the state pension than an average retail and even NHS employee.
Maybe if you start putting a few extra pennies in at the age of 18, it may add up. Starting doing so at 40+ will probably not meaningfully impact my final pension. I recently looked into how much it would cost me to increase my pension by 5k a year and it is unaffordable. My choices are to pay rent/mortgage or pay extra 6k into pension annually for the next 10 years. I can't manage both as a single person.

Great .....you'll still have a whole three healthy and chipper years left after you finish working at 67.

I've made peace with the fact that I will get sod all. I'm already not entitled to a state pension until I hit 70. I have a SIPP and a workplace pension. Which might be worth 181K by the time I hit pension age assuming nothing changes. Lets say I'm destined to die at 85 so 15 years left of life after retirement that means I will have £12,066 a year to live off of as a reward for working 56 years and propping up the boomers pensions. So I will be using that money to settle my affairs and go to Switzerland to finish things on my terms.

I find it really depressing that so many people are talking about ending their lives early rather than living in poverty because they expect not to have the state pension they have been led to believe they will get.

Personally I know a lot of immigrants that retire abroad after having worked in the UK their entire lives.

E.g. you can live like a prince in Nigeria (pun intended) on your savings, even if you have worked a fairly basic job - I work with a man who is making the max permitted workplace pension contributions and literally building a palace with his savings as a salaried employee. I also know a lot of people that have spent all their working lives as high earners in the USA and then retired 'back home' in South America or Europe.

A lot of immigrants maintain very strong connections to their countries of origin, may have aging parents there, and only spend their working years in their country of employment, i.e. all economically inactive years are spent away from the UK.

From a pensions' POV, immigration is good ROI, in addition to providing care workers.

Personally I don't think I'll retire abroad unless my social network significantly changes, or I find meaningful work outside the UK when I am older. My plan is to work at least until 75, as is customary in my family, but I am concerned that there's a fair bit of ageism in UK workplaces, and working past 70+ in a salaried job unless very senior executive isn't tolerated.

I've had hardly ever worked with anyone 65+, other than the CEO, in almost any job I've had. Whereas in some other countries older people in the workplace (through choice, not through need) is common.

It is currently 68 for those of us born after the late 1970s. But the state pension was not brought in or intended for people to ‘enjoy life’, it was introduced so people who were too old and infirm to work wouldn't starve.

The people I’ve known still working 65+ have been in jobs they genuinely loved and give them some purpose in life. I worked at a charity which had a few, and most volunteers were over 70.

I doubt many 65+ year olds would want to be doing city jobs however.

I definitely feel that way about my job/ working life, I don't yearn for retirement at all. I'm just concerned that I won't be permitted to keep going, although not sure what 'pushing out' would look like.

Whenever I volunteer, I see that most volunteers are older people, probably 70ish, doing quite physical tasks. I wonder whether some of these people would actually like to keep working and also socially and physically benefit from it, nevermind financially, but won't be given a chance in paid employment.

I genuinely don't know anyone expecting to get a state pension (I'm early 40s).

And I think the government has been pretty clear on the likelihood that it won't work for much longer. E.g. government campaigns encouraging private pensions, auto enrollment, enforced company pensions etc.

I'm not asking to be funded to play golf and travel for twenty years.

But I think I bloody well deserve the option to not have to continue grinding myself to death until I'm almost 70 when I started paying into the system in the early 1980s.

Not quite as simple as that. There are loopholes. Ways around it.

If you are paying from your assets, you have more choice than someone who who has nothing.
My friend's DM has assets, so went into a nice home. My gran had nothing... straight into one that stinks of piss and the residents look drugged up.

It’s a huge issue in Japan though. Not sure they have planned for it.