Back to 60's Judicial Review Outcome

JoeCrystal

colsten wrote: »

I agree with the rest of your post but this court ruling has me stumped. Which european court was that, please? When was that ruling? Can you post a link to the ruling, please?

In Barber v Guardian Royal Exchange Insurance Group (C-262/88) [1991] 1 QB 344, the European Court of Justice ruled that it was contrary to the equal pay provisions in Article 157 TFEU for an occupational pension scheme to provide for unequal benefits for men and women.

Here is the link to the ruling itself:
https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX%3A61988CJ0262

Happier_Me

I think the whole reaction to the change in women's pensions represents a much bigger issue and that is the vast majority of people in the UK spend most of their lives with their head in the sand when it comes to pensions and retirement planning.

The people that frequent this board are in a very small minority.

My mum was born in 1954, she's an intelligent woman who simply did not know the changes had been made until a few years before she turned 60. The messages passed her by, because retirement was simply not something she thought about. Would she have made changes to fund her retirement differently had she known? If I'm honest, I don't think so. Neither my mum or dad have prioritised pension savings during their lives.

However, I'm mid 40's and I think attitudes in some people and workplaces still have to change in order to achieve genuine equality. I'm of the generation that has got the financial equality message loud and clear (I've been our household's main earner for most of my working life) yet I have fallen into the trap of also running the house and being the main carer for our children. Yes, I've allowed it to happen but this hasn't been helped by a company whose policies date back to the dark ages and a husband who hasn't been prepared to change job in order to help more on a practical level. But deep down I think his reluctance has been partly influenced by the thinking that running a house and family is primarily still a woman's job!

DairyQueen

ArcticRoll wrote: »

The removal of preferential treatment is not discrimination. Never has been, never will be.

I look forward to the day when the treatment of men on the issue of child and elder care is considered equally 'preferential'.

ArcticRoll wrote: »

Your argument is "I should retire early because I'm a a woman", it makes no more sense than "I should pay less tax because I'm gay" and then we go on citing historical social and economic disadvantages we've each had to justify our points. It'd still be utterly ridiculous.

For me, this issue can't be viewed in isolation of the bigger picture. If gender equality applied across the retirement income spectrum then it's a no-brainer that pension age should be equalised. However. no such gender equality exists. The most recent figures report that, by age 60, females have only 50% of the male age-equivalent, non-SP pension pot.

The SP therefore forms a much greater %age of female retirement income and I believe that it's this large gender difference in total retirement income that is the crux of the problem.

ArcticRoll wrote: »

This has NEVER been about equality it's been about a sore reaction to one group of people losing a privilege. Men do more physically demanding jobs, make up the overwhelming majority of work-place deaths and injuries and die younger - the argument that women should retire early "because they're women" looks utterly absurd in 2019.

I anticipate that some men will feel sore when/if they lose their non-SP pension privilege and their total retirement income falls. That privilege has been gained at the expense of women who sacrificed full-time work and career opportunities to care for their own and spouse's children and/or disabled/elderly relatives. That privilege has also been gained at the expense of a male pay advantage.

Gender equality in this respect means men taking equal responsibility for caring roles. It means men earning less and women more over their lifetimes. It means men accruing less pension benefits and women more. And so on.

The argument that women should be society's carers also looks 'utterly absurd' in 2019. Unfortunately, in 1995 nobody considered this absurd. Indeed, in 2019 the expectation that women should be the gender that sacrifices their earning/pension potential is still alive-and-well.

So, we appear to have addressed the only pension issue on which women were gender privileged without addressing the much greater gender privileges enjoyed by men.

And let's not forget that the situation was even worse at the time SP gender equalisation was legislated. No pensions for part-time workers back then (and the vast majority of part-timers were and are female). The first equal pay act was introduced in 1970 but, here we are 50 years later, and the evidence suggests that it (and its successors) have yet to be fully implemented. If they had, then the gender pay gap would be an historic curiosity.

I agree that the removal of preferential treatment isn't discrimination so I am sure that you support the end of the preferential treatment afforded men courtesy of 'social norms' that detriment female income throughout their lives?

Triumph13

These statistics about gender differences in pay and pension provision are often pretty meaningless as you are looking at people as individuals, but much of the difference arises from couples with children. In order to provide care for the children, it has been fairly standard for one half of the couple to prioritise income earning and for the other to accept a reduction in earnings to allow them to prioritise childcare for a key period of their career. I'm happy to deplore the sexism which still means that it is predominantly men who take the former role and women the latter, but when the couple is basically functioning as a single economic unit you can't just draw sweeping conclusions from whose name the pension funds are in.
My wife has significantly less pension provision in her name than I do, but she is in no way 'poorer' than me. The combined funds are there to support us as a couple. If, heaven forbid, she divorced me she would get awarded equal shares (a very important change in the law relatively recently). Unless you can disentangle the impacts of this 'couple effect' any raw data on gender differentials is massively unreliable.

p00hsticks

Happier_Me wrote: »

I think the whole reaction to the change in women's pensions represents a much bigger issue and that is the vast majority of people in the UK spend most of their lives with their head in the sand when it comes to pensions and retirement planning.

It's not just pensions and financial plannig, either. We've already had at least one WASPI on this thread claim that "they didn't have time to read a paper or watch TV'.

I think everyone should take it on themselves to be aware at least at a high level of what is going on in the world by looking at a variety of reputable news sources on a regular basis. We desperarately need a better informed populace - the general ignorance displayed by some people is often shocking.

lisyloo

JoeCrystal wrote: »

It is so unfair that my state pension age is 68, 35 years down the line... I am not sure I got enough notice of the pension age change. Life is unfair after all!

Hey joe, you can retire whenever you want.
You have plenty of time to plan that.

Mortgagefreeman

I see backto60 have started their 9th round of crowdfunding, taking money off vulnerable women, in the hope of obtaining an Appeal on the Judicial review. On what grounds though?

https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/appeal

JoeCrystal

lisyloo wrote: »

Hey joe, you can retire whenever you want.
You have plenty of time to plan that.

Indeed, thus my comment was tongue in cheek. Should all go well for the next 27 years, I may be able to retire at 60.

Mortgagefreeman wrote: »

I see backto60 have started their 9th round of crowdfunding, taking money off vulnerable women, in the hope of obtaining an Appeal on the Judicial review. On what grounds though?

https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/appeal

Sighs. This is going to rumbling for next several decades...

Thrugelmir

JoeCrystal wrote: »

Sighs. This is going to rumbling for next several decades...

Time ticks away and with it those impacted.

Silvertabby

“ Sighs. This is going to rumbling for next several decades...
Originally posted by JoeCrystal

Just until 2025, when the women born on 31 December 1959 get their State pensions.

Remember that WASPE and Back260 don't give a stuff about women born on or after 1 January 1960.