Equalisation of UK pension age

Great Debates
1

For foreigners, the UK pension, similar to the American Social Security is provided by the state at present on the basis of the number of years of National Insurance contributions made (a form of tax on income), although not on the total amount paid in. People who have worked (or claimed certain benefits), and therefore paid NI, for enough years will get the state pension from the age of retirement. Less years of contributions means a lower rate of payment.

Well, hitherto the age of retirement has been 65 for men and 60 for women for several decades. Given that men have shorter life expectancies, this means women get about a decade of extra peaceful retirement before popping their clogs, a pretty blatant inequality.

There might be something about it that’s bad for women too, like the lower number of years in which they can accumulate contributions, especially given the greater likelihood that they’ll have time off to have babies at some point.

Anyway the government have finally got around to proposing that maybe there ought to be a little bit of equality, and eventually in quite a few years, the ages might be equal, albeit only through both ages going up.

Obviously the women’s lobby has complained, for example here in the Telegraph, this is described as “discriminatory” against women. They’re very upset that some women may be left “with no husband to help support them”, which would be a pity. The writer of that particular article blames the EU for forbidding men’s pension age being raised before women’s. I tell you, with that and the EU getting rid of that cheap car insurance women formerly got I’m almost coming to like the EU. No complaints about the massive discrimination against men in the pension system which still continues, just calls for it to continue and get worse.

The Guardian report that AgeUK, supposedly a charity, have marched on Parliament to protest for the continuation of the current grossly unjust state of affairs.

I think the age ought in stead to be immediately equalised at 65, and those who lose out from the removal of this injustice, tough luck. Feel free to disagree.

2

I agree with the principle of equalisation, but not your last point. Changes like this have to be planned in.

3

Yea, its not the womans fault that the ages are unequal, and presumably all the 59 year old woman out there have planned their finances and careers with the present system in mind. Yanking the rug out from under them is hardly fair, and as I imagine a lot of them will suddenly find that they no longer have the finances they thought they would and thus end up on welfare, I’m not sure it would even save that much money.

But yea, unequal retirement ages are pretty antiquated, so I agree they should be phased out.

4

What was the rationale for the inequality originally?

5

I’ve heard it has something to do with the expection that most women will; marry a man at least a couple years older than her, and spend most of her “working years” as a homemaker. I’m not clear on how either of those translates to a lower retirement age for women. If anything one could argue that the lifespan difference justifies a higher retirement age for women (not that I’d agree with it).

6

Part of the inequality has to to with pay. Simply put, men were usually paid more than women for the same work, and once the equality laws kicked in from Europe, further discrimination was shown up when assessing gender based pay for work of equal value to the employer.

Thos obviously meant that women could not contribute the same amount as men, in addition, as far as taxation and benefits go, male claiments would make their claims on behalf of the partnership, there was also the anomoly if both partners were working, the man would get a larger married mans tax deductable than the woman. It was not until the last 20 years that couple could choose which partners income the married persons tax deductable apllied to, however in practice this would usually have been the man since he generally had the higher income and would be more likely to be in the higher tax band.

So in summary, women earned less, got less tax benefits, and so were unable to make the greater pension provision. It was more useful from a state taxation point of view to keep men in work longer as they earned more money and so paid more tax.In addition men die earlier and so they reclaim less from the state in pension payments, state wins.

7

Every change that includes adate will disadvantage some ad=nd advantage others. Of course there should be a sunset clause- sufficient time for people to adjust.

8

They haven’t ‘finally got around to proposing’ equalising the system. As the Telegraph article states, the process of equalisation has been ongoing for years:

What the current protests are about is a sudden acceleration in this rate of change. It’s women who were due to retire within a year suddenly being told that they can’t. That means they couldn’t plan for it.

9

Well, that is a very different thing, then, and it seems like the whole thing was being handled properly and that the protesters have a point.

As far as the original difference in ages, I think a lot of it goes back to the paternalistic idea that it’s simply impossible for a wife to work and a man stay home. A couple retiring together is appropriate: a man retiring before his wife looks like a man being supported by his wife, and up until pretty recently that was really unacceptable if there was any other alternative. Since wives are often a few years younger than their husbands, they “needed” a lower retirement age.

10

It was handled properly before, yeah - remarkably well, really. The Condems are even managing to legislate againt their core voters. They’ll probably retract; odds are it’s a smokescreen anyway.

TBH I’ve never really understood the reasons behind a lower state pension age for women, but if there were reasons for it in the past, there certainly aren’t now, and I’m glad it’s being equalised. (And I’m female).

Most working women I’ve known who could have retired at 60 have instead retired at 65. They got a higher rate of state pension by doing so. My mother is doing this and so have nearly all the female nurses and teachers I’ve known in this age bracket.

Men could also retire earlier (60-64) on the grounds of ill health, and get the lower pension rate; my Dad was extremely annoyed to be retired 3 months before his 65th birthday, because he’d get less money. So I think the retirement age for women was earlier, but they also got paid less. Trying to find support for this online is difficult with all the insurance and pensions company ads clogging up the results as well as this recent news, and my anecdotal evidence could well be wrong.