Increase in state pension age for women

• Tweet
• Pin It

It’s been said that the state pension system assumes that if you’re a man you have a pension and if you’re a woman you have a husband. It has always been difficult for a woman to get a fair pension out of the system and recent changes have been no exception.

Women in their 50s face having to wait up to two extra years before they can claim their basic state pension, as a result of the Coalition Government’s decision to fast track the increase in state pension age from 2016 for both sexes.

In its Coalition Agreement, the Government promised that the pension age for women would not start increasing before 2020, but it now plans to increase their pension age from 2016.

Half a million women face a pension age rise of over one year and over 300,000 will face a delay of over 18 months.

There is clearly strong feeling that the Government is not acting correctly on this. Many women who have already retired to care for relatives or who are not well enough to work face an unexpected gap in their income which they will have extreme difficulty plugging.

Many women in their 50s have not had much of a chance to build up private pensions because they may have had fewer years in work due to bringing up children.  Many will not have been eligible to join company pension schemes because they worked part time or did not stay with the same employer long enough to qualify for membership.

Yet the Government is making these women bear the brunt of cost saving measures designed to save money on pensions over the long term.

Of the women affected by this change, around 35% are single and have no husband’s state pension to fall back on and 40% have no private pension.

Of  those women who do have a private personal pension, it is worth a tenth of the average male’s private  pension, while for those women with a final salary pension, it is half the size of the average male’s final salary pension.

Women are therefore often far more reliant on the state pension then men. The chances of them finding work in their 50s, (assuming that they are well enough to work) are slim, given ongoing ageism in the workplace and their lack of skills (if they have been out of the workforce for a long time).

While the argument about the need to increase state pension age in line with increases in longevity is well made, it does not justify this sudden increase being imposed on a group of women who are have been seriously disadvantaged by the system from the beginning.

• Tweet
• Pin It

Related Posts

• 

  Putting savings at the heart of the economy
  Putting savings at the heart of the economy
• 

  Pension delay for women – time for action
  Pension delay for women – time for action
• 

  Savers of every hue have little to savour
  Savers of every hue have little to savour
• 

  Saver shock at retirement
  Saver shock at retirement

3 Comments

1. Ruth

   April 30, 2011 at 4:26 pm

   This is a very good article pointing out the unfairness of the proposed accelerated pension age rise ! Many women affected started work at 15 years of age when there was no equality of wages and no chance to save for a private pension. Widows who were born in 1954 are especially hardest hit, targeted twice by the age rise, and if they were widowed after widows pension was abolished, they have no choice but to work until they can claim their state pension to live on. Mr Webb says if they can’t work or JSA they can go on the sick, that is not enough to live on, they have earned their pension and should not have to beg for money in those other ways..
   Unions together and AGE UK are fighting this age rise and urge everyone to write to their MP about the unfairness of it.

   Recommend (10)
2. Barbara

   April 30, 2011 at 5:17 pm

   Many of the points in this article apply to me, I started work at 15 and have worked all my life in lower paid, menial “women’s jobs”, I never had the opportunity or the spare money to save for a private pension, I am a widow and have no other means of support apart from what I go out and work for, I missed out on widows pension, my husband died long before his pension age – where did all his money go? I’m working and paying contributions and will have to continue to do so until I qualify for my state pension. I get no help with anything, rent, council tax, prescriptions, eye tests, glasses everything I need I have to pay for and sometimes things I need I can’t afford! Under the coaltion’s proposal to bring forward the rise in qualifying age I will have to work 100 more weeks bringing me up to 66 years of age, I will lose over £10,000 and will STILL be paying contributions if I am fit enough to still be working. If I am not fit enough where will I get money to live on? We are not allowed to be ill, we are not allowed to be unemployed. How will we manage to our late sixties with nothing to live on? This is so unfair, on the government’s own website it tells us we need 30 qualifying years to claim our pensions, so why are they trying to make me work 51 years before they will give me mine?
   Fair enough, I know men have had to work extra years and yes it should be evened up but not at the expense of we women who have already accepted 4 years being added to the retirement age we expected for most of our lives. Women like me born in 1954 are being hit the hardest , hit twice, robbed of £10,000+, robbed of two years freedom insulted by the coalition assuming we have men to keep us. Why can’t they see that keeping older people working longer is denying younger people job opportunities?

   Recommend (13)
3. yvonne

   June 18, 2012 at 8:44 am

   Its not too late to campaign for change – The act was passed in 2011 after the Coalition broke its pledge not to make changes until 2020. The changes are unfair and unequal – some women lose nothing , others 3 months of pension, others like me 18months of pension and dont forget all the other age related benefits such as Bus Pass, prescription charges, heating allowances etc. I have written repeatedly to the Ministry for Pensions and my Mp ( she also thinks the changes are unfair as they are not equal for all) .The Government have the power to change the changes – So I urge everyone affected and their families to write and write and write to demand a fair deal for all. ( Remember emails cost nothing but time and they have to read and respond to them!) GET WRITING NOW!

   Recommend (0)