WASPI - Women Against State Pension Inequality

jamesd

BucksLady wrote: »

Could you please give a link to show that 14% of the population went to uni at this time. It would be interesting to see.

It would be interesting to see but it's probably too high for 1973. "Overall participation in higher education increased from 3.4% in 1950, to 8.4% in 1970, 19.3% in 1990 and 33% in 2000". That includes polytechnics in 1970 numbers.

One of the interesting things that university students learn about is how to do research. In this case the first Google search I used was for uk university attendance history and the first search result contains a well indexed answer to your question on page 14 in the form of a handy graph showing first degrees awarded with text below it quoted by me above.

jamesd

missbiggles1 wrote: »

Given that 14% of the population went to university at that time and grammar schools took the ablest 25%, a grammar school that only got 8% of its pupils into university would've been seen to have failed in its remit.

Knowing what source says that 14% of the population went to university in 1974 when in 1970 only 8.4% went into all forms of higher education would be useful.

missbiggles1 wrote: »

I do appreciate that but only 8% of a grammar school's leavers going to university in the mid 70s seems very unlikely, particularly in an affluent area.

Given that only 8.4% of the population in 1970 went into all forms of higher education and that only30.5% of all first degrees went to women in 1970 it does not seem very unlikely to me.

There are some pretty gross differences in expectations between that time and today, perhaps well illustrated in the source I gave earlier which has this information about numbers obtaining first degrees:

1950 men 13398 women 3939
1960 men 16851 women 5575
1970 men 35571 women 15618
1980 men 42831 women 25319
1990 men 43297 women 22866
2000 men 109930 women 133316
2010 men 144980 women 185740

Along with the huge increase in numbers the dramatic change in the gender mix of those obtaining degrees is notable.

Discrimination and differing expectations were rife in the time period being discussed. Things were only slowly changing from the women as secretary to women with independent thinking brains during this period, something that is taken far more for granted these days.

Mr_Costcutter

jamesd, thank you so much for your informed replies - really interesting information.

BucksLady

jamesd wrote: »

Knowing what source says that 14% of the population went to university in 1974 when in 1970 only 8.4% went into all forms of higher education would be useful.

Given that only 8.4% of the population in 1970 went into all forms of higher education and that only30.5% of all first degrees went to women in 1970 it does not seem very unlikely to me.

There are some pretty gross differences in expectations between that time and today, perhaps well illustrated in the source I gave earlier which has this information about numbers obtaining first degrees:

1950 men 13398 women 3939
1960 men 16851 women 5575
1970 men 35571 women 15618
1980 men 42831 women 25319
1990 men 43297 women 22866
2000 men 109930 women 133316
2010 men 144980 women 185740

Along with the huge increase in numbers the dramatic change in the gender mix of those obtaining degrees is notable..

I wasn't surprised about the statistics for 1970, but found those for 2010 quite surprising. I hadn't realised the differential between men and women was so high.

Many thanks James for this information.

p00hsticks

BucksLady wrote: »

Could you please give a link to show that 14% of the population went to uni at this time. It would be interesting to see.

the graph on page 5 of this document from the Institute of Fiscal Studies shows the % of the UK population attending university and shows that the figure was 14% for the first half of the 70's before falling slightly

http://www.ifs.org.uk/wps/wp1004.pdf

jamesd

p00hsticks wrote: »

the graph on page 5 of this document from the Institute of Fiscal Studies shows the % of the UK population attending university and shows that the figure was 14% for the first half of the 70's before falling slightly

http://www.ifs.org.uk/wps/wp1004.pdf

The title of that figure is "Figure 2 Long-term trend in HE participation in the UK (1960-2001) " (my bold)

That's all higher education, not just university and not even just university and polytechnic. It's interesting that the Rutgers individual called Finegold gave a higher number for total higher education participation than the official UK statistics used by Education: Historical statistics by the House of Commons Library that I looked at. If I have to pick one my guess is that Finegold got something wrong or is being even more inclusive in definition of higher education. Places like certificate-awarding secretarial or nursing colleges might be included in one but not the other, say, or perhaps some forms of apprenticeship with older apprentices in a more broad measure. Nursing is a particular concern in the current context because back then it wasn't generally a university track course but has been very popular historically with women.

p00hsticks

jamesd wrote: »

The title of that figure is "Figure 2 Long-term trend in HE participation in the UK (1960-2001) " (my bold)

That's all higher education, not just university and not even just university and polytechnic.

It does, but the notes immediately underneath the graph say that "Note: the age participation index refers to the percentage of 17-30 year olds who go to university. " (my bold)

jamesd

Thanks and true, yet the Commons Library report has as its sources for the things I mentioned here the UK's Higher Education Statistics Agency and Report 6 of the National Committee of Inquiry into Higher Education.

I don't know why their numbers differ from those of the Rutgers person but I'll go with the two UK sources chosen by the Commons Library.

HB58

I left my mixed grammar school aged 16 in 1974.There was a very good grammar school in the area, mine was not so good.

I don't remember how many boys went on to Uni but I do remember that, among us girls, the Uni path was not expected for the majority. I went into nursing, many of my peers went into either teacher training, secretarial college or banking. I doubt that many of them became bank managers! There were just 2 girls in my year who wanted to go to Uni, I don't know whether they did as that was the year secondary schools [edit - in our area] stopped offering 6th form education, we all had to go to '6th form college' and we went to different establishments.

I can't argue that the equalisation of state pension age is unfair. However, it does feel very unfair that I have spent more than half of my life expecting to retire at 60 and it is now 66 (and I only missed 67 by a few months).

slightlymiffed

While everyone is arguing about grammar schools (I also went to one)... and some are unkindly suggesting that everyone should have known about the 1995 change to state pension age, perhaps not everyone is yet aware of all the implications of the new 'flat rate' state pension.

For instance, according to new DWP (department of work and pensions) figures released under a Freedom of Information request by Paul Lewis of BBC Moneybox, in my cohort alone (retirement year 2020), some 70,000 will have less than 35 years contributions and so will not get the full flat rate pension. And the figures speak for themselves - 20,000 will be men and 50,000 women. Did everyone know that?