To be fed up with the WASPIs' renewed campaign?

[Jane379]

I sympathise with people who genuinely did not know but hiw many was this? And how would we know who to compensate even if the money were available?

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/waspi-latest-compensation-legal-challenge-pension-b2976014.html

And woman were discriminated against legally by being barred from workplace pensions, which was the point I was making originally. As others are suggesting that woman were feckless in not sorting out additional pension

Yes, it did. A woman who was sidelined into a 'female' job on low pay with little or no pension wasn't going to be able to make it to the top (or anywhere near it) in time to make a difference. Even when the law changed, culture often didn't, and infrastructure (such as childcare and the idea of 'real men' and 'good husbands' supporting stay at home wives) was slow too. Many women worked for 'pin money' and didn't pay NI, sometimes because employers preferred to keep everyone under the limit so they didn't have to contribute either, and sometimes because the pay was low and there was little or no childcare available for those without family help.

Also laws that forced employers to allow part-time workers and those on recurring contracts (eg term-time in schools, or renewable academic contracts) to join pension schemes came in much later, and most PT workers have always been female. Some entry level jobs were renamed to make them sound unisex, but in fact were reserved for one sex or the other, with the higher paid ones with prospects for boys, and the support ones for girls.

Many women paid a lower stamp (NI contribution) when they married, as it was assumed their husbands would provide when they retired, and he could make higher contributions to his own SERPs (the earnings related bit of the old state pension), which could have tax advantages for the couple. Fine if that happened as planned, but if the couple split, it was the woman left with a low pension, and when the SPA changed these women had far more to pay back than if they had paid the full amount in their own right. I'm not advocating that those who paid in less should get a full pension, but it's not as clear cut as it sounds.

I agree. I barely watch the news and I knew about it.

But in the 80’s, 90’s and early noughties the culture had changed considerably as had pensions etc . The ability to set up pensions , pay additional contributions was there and autonomy over financial decisions had been present for some time.

People like myself were not sent letters (slightly too young) but the massive amount of publicity , discussion etc made us aware that our retirement age was changing and even a few years makes a difference in making changes to saving for retirement. Due to raising family it was only after the children had finished education I could contribute to building pension up to “bridge the gap”.

My mother was from an earlier than WASPI generation but retired at 55 with a very generous workplace pension and a very generous payout from her mortgage endowment, even after starting with nothing after a divorce. She had left school at 14 and certainly would recognise much of what was written but for my generation and those born a few years before this , this chimes as the experience of a previous generation, not ours . We benefitted from the equal rights movement . It took years before men benefitted from that pension wise and even now , because of the disparity in life expectancy , men will still get less retirement than women . In some deprived areas men’s life expectancy is less than the retirement age .

I can understand the frustration.

But the problem is that pensioners are the biggest recipients of benefits in the form of the state pension. Most are taking out way more than they ever put in. It’s a very uncomfortable truth.

This is unsustainable long term and a ticking time bomb that my generation will have to deal with. It’s a disaster for advanced economies. See France for example.

There are no easy solutions here and there is going to be much pain coming.

https://historyandpolicy.org/policy-papers/papers/the-scandal-of-womens-pensions-in-britain-how-did-it-come-about/

the last paragraph is interesting

What subjects? STEM?

These are strong points: I'm older Gen Z and I should know more of this history. My grandmother was born in the 30s and worked all her life in girls' schools with mostly female teachers, so was less held back in a sense, but obviously this wasn't the case for many other women including younger ones.
As you say, it's not clear-cut : but probably not financially possible to compensate....

Thank you for the info : sorry, I remember now that what I read is that baby boomers DO have longer life expectancy than previous generations, but they also have poorer health

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

Also, from what I've read, Gen X, the children of the boomers, have a fairly similar life expectancy. But like the Boomers, they will have fewer healthy years, on average.

This

This

This

Some boomers did make bad choices in the past but it's unfair to blame a whole generation. I don't want this thread to he blanket boomer bashing. Plenty of boomers are hardly personally responsible for younger generations having less than they did.

I do think boomers overall should have tried to keep themselves in better health but this is of course complex..

You could still be legally sacked for getting pregnant until the 1990s and it was happening.

Kudos to you for bringing that case : that's really shocking you were underpaid for so long, despite the law.

How common was this?

This

That's really shocking. The equal pay act came into force in 1975..was there no way of getting the company to pay fairly?

Kudos to you for fighting for those things

However both were banned in 1975, most WASPIs would not have been affected by them.

Most companies don't have to be open about what they pay- how would you know you weren't being paid less- if no one flauted the rules Birmingham Cuncil wouldn't have paid dinnerladies less than men of the same grade for 25 years (up until about 2017)
and the court case and disparity in pay cost them millions- it bankrupted the council, look it up.
Any law is only any good if it is policed- like the majority of laws this one isn't. In the 1980's I got paid less than two thirds what my male opposite number was paid- they just gave him a slightly different and it was perfectly legal- it will still go on to a lesser extent to this day- if you don't realise that you are being incredibly naive.

Exactly. PMSL that poster thinks 50 years working is some kind of shocking number - EVERYONE entering the workplace now will be working for at least 50 years until retirement age. And that’s assuming that retirement age doesn’t get pushed back even further, or get abolished altogether.

I fully expect to still be paying for that poster’s pension well into my 70s, a good decade older than she was when she was able to put her feet up.

That is the assumption used by insurance companies and pension providers, not the State pension.

Life expectancy is 81(ish) so why would it need to be 71 or 72 if it's based on 15 years?

"No-one ever told me the goalposts had changed re. the retirement age, there were no adverts I ever saw and this idea that we all had letters ??"

I'm not sure anyone can justify billions in compensation to people that are bad at "adulting" or the "mental load" of retirement planning.

Why do you think you are "owed" anything? I'm not in the UK and was born in 1959. When I started work the superannuation age was 60, by the time I retired it was 65 - so what? I never took any notice of what anyone else was being paid, but of course men here also usually were paid more - so what? I only cared about what I was being paid, not anyone else, and no we didn't pay into private superannuation schemes when I was young either. However, unlike you, I have never felt I am "owed" anything.