Sign the Petition for Womens state pension age going up unfair

Pollycat

buggy_boy wrote: »

Surely if you want equality womens pensions should be the same as mens...

Actually mens pensionable age should theoretically be lower as men do not live as long as women so to equal the same average amount taken in a lifetime mens pensionable age should be much lower.

Yep, I'd be happy with that.

Pollycat wrote: »

Of course equal pension ages for men and women are fair.

But that wasn't always the case, was it?

You do realise that women's SPA used to be 60.......?

In 1995 this was changed but there were transitional arrangements put in place to gradually move women's SPA to 65.
Even the government at that time didn't think that it would be fair just to arbitrarily change from 60 to 65 in one fell swoop. :rotfl:

PensionTech

Phew. Going back a bit to respond to this comment:

So just one article in the Daily Mail and none apparently in the Daily Express, the Sun, the News Of the World or The People

In what way should the government (read: today's taxpayers) be held to account if some papers don't think it's worth their while to report on pensions issues when others do? Or if women choose to read papers that don't run financial stories because they don't find them interesting? Should they have legislated for Hello! magazine to have to devote a minimum percentage of their content to pension changes? (Disclosure: I am a woman and my reference to Hello! is not meant to be derogatory or sexist; it is a response to your claim that women would not traditionally read broadsheets.)

As others have said, 1994 to 1996 wouldn't have captured stories immediately following the 1993 Budget, which is always big news, and there may be papers missing from this search (someone mentioned the Mail on Sunday).

The point is that the government didn't even remotely cover this up and the information was out there, well-publicised, for years, in lots of places. The evidence showed in 2004 that the majority of women were aware and therefore it was clearly easy enough to become aware. A minority of women not being bothered to think about their state pension age at any time in the last 20 years does not make a compelling case for compensation. It is difficult to stomach the claim that the assumption of an SPA of 60 was so important that a woman would base her entire retirement around it, yet not think it important enough to check on even once (getting a state pension forecast would have done the job) - and that we should stump up billions of pounds for those women for their lack of interest.

The 2011 changes are a different matter.

xylophone

I remember hearing about the change to state pension back in 1995 and when reading into the matter, thinking that the very gradual increase was very fair - my original impression had been that if a woman was born in the 50-51 tax year, she would have to wait a whole year, one born 51-52 for two whole years etc.

The accelerated increase created in 2011 was another matter - not fair at all, or so it seems to me.

http://citywire.co.uk/new-model-adviser/news/webb-we-made-a-bad-decision-on-state-pension-age-rises/a866283

I don't think much of the "concession" either but for those who benefit, better than nothing.

Nick_C

I can see that many women will be disappointed that they will have to wait longer before getting their state pensions. Many men will also be disappointed that they will also have to wait longer. But the inequality of different retirement ages for men and women was completely wrong and needed to end. The longer the transitional period, the longer this unfairess is perpetuated.

We won't have an equal pension age for men and women until November 2018! It will have taken 23 years to implement this measure. Any further delay cannot be justified.

saver861

xylophone wrote: »

The accelerated increase created in 2011 was another matter - not fair at all, or so it seems to me.

http://citywire.co.uk/new-model-adviser/news/webb-we-made-a-bad-decision-on-state-pension-age-rises/a866283

I don't think much of the "concession" either but for those who benefit, better than nothing.

The six months 'concession' might be no surprise that it would have been preplanned that way. Its usual government tactics.

So, they intend to have an additional 18 months for those in that age range but actually make it 24 months from the outset - knowing they will face objection and thus 'reduce' it to 18 months so the objectors 'feel' like the have achieved something!

Goldiegirl

buggy_boy wrote: »

Surely if you want equality womens pensions should be the same as mens...

Actually mens pensionable age should theoretically be lower as men do not live as long as women so to equal the same average amount taken in a lifetime mens pensionable age should be much lower.

When you go down that route, then people will be arguing that pensionable age in various regions will need to be lower as life expectancy is lower in some regions


The only easy and fair way to do it is for pensionable age to be the same for all

Nick_C

Of course the equalisation of pension ages is not only affecting women. It is affecting men too.

Many women approaching pensionable age are married or living with men in long term co-dependent relationships. It is quite common for couple to pool their finances or cross subsidise each other. So the extra time women will have to wait to draw their state pensions will affect many men as well, as the couple will lose money.

I suppose those hardest hit will be single women and lesbians.

buggy_boy

Goldiegirl wrote: »

When you go down that route, then people will be arguing that pensionable age in various regions will need to be lower as life expectancy is lower in some regions


The only easy and fair way to do it is for pensionable age to be the same for all

There is that argument that says that however you would need to look at why people live longer in some areas rather than others, you could argue a smoker should get a pension early as they are more likely to die early...

There is however a difference between lifestyle and genetic disposition.. If you take one man and one woman, they live exactly the same lifestyle in exactly the same place on average the woman will live far longer no matter what other changes you make, as long as you compare like for like this will be true.

Thus Men should either have a lower retirement age or a larger pension.. Of course this will never happen as women would cry foul and claim inequality, I agree with previous post, the sooner this inequality is sorted the better, there was no "phase in" time when women got the right to the same pay as men and rightly so but you cant have it both ways.

patanne

Women USED to live longer than men. I think that as the years go on and more and more women have worked all their lives, with no long breaks for having children etc. That, I think, will bring the overall LE of women down nearer men. That, of course, ignores the LE of single women which used to be the highest of all. I could go into the reasons for this but I am content to think that it is just the stress they save by not having to live with a man.

Maybe in view of overpopulation it should be possible to give a larger state pension to those who haven't added to that.

I will now remove my tongue firmly from my cheek and duck!

Malthusian

Women USED to live longer than men. I think that as the years go on and more and more women have worked all their lives, with no long breaks for having children etc. That, I think, will bring the overall LE of women down nearer men.

That seems unlikely. Some studies have found that women have a higher life expectancy even when societal/environmental factors are adjusted for, possibly because their smaller bodies make them more resistant to disease. And even when you remove work from the equation, men will still smoke more, drink more, drive worse, get in fights, commit suicide more often, work in more dangerous occupations, etc.

That, of course, ignores the LE of single women which used to be the highest of all. I could go into the reasons for this but I am content to think that it is just the stress they save by not having to live with a man.

Surely the reason is removing the dangers of childbirth and associated complications from the equation.