Why don't men complain?

lisyloo

DairyQueen wrote: »

Do you really believe that, if these women had experienced the same opportunity to accrue retirement income at the level of their male equivalents, that they would be protesting?

Yes also from me.
I think if both genders were given total equal work opportunities (in some jobs we have that) then some women would choose to stay at home with their babies/children.
Breastfeeding will never be equal (and yes I know you can use a pump) but I believe some women would still choose to spend more time at home and there is nothing wrong with that.
I don’t consider it a lifestyle choice, I consider it a biological imperative on which we will never achieve true equality. We could achieve fairness though.

The state pension system gives adults credit for childcare (both genders).

I don’t have the answers but in answer to your question, yes I believe women would chose to work less.

zagfles

lisyloo wrote: »

Yes also from me.
I think if both genders were given total equal work opportunities (in some jobs we have that) then some women would choose to stay at home with their babies/children.
Breastfeeding will never be equal (and yes I know you can use a pump) but I believe some women would still choose to spend more time at home and there is nothing wrong with that.
I don’t consider it a lifestyle choice, I consider it a biological imperative on which we will never achieve true equality. We could achieve fairness though.

The state pension system gives adults credit for childcare (both genders).

I don’t have the answers but in answer to your question, yes I believe women would chose to work less.

And of course men often support women in working less/taking a career break to look after children, by providing the income to enable them to do so. This is often used to show how men are "enabled" to earn more by their wife/partner who takes the pay hit to care for their children.

But where the man is the only breadwinner, it's not really his income, it's family income.

Why not try to formalise this? At a stroke, you could probably eliminate most of the pay and even the pension gap, without actually changing much, just changing the way we look at things.

Here's what I mean. A couple have a child. One of them gives up work to look after child. The one that carries on working is now supporting the family, the one that looks after the child is now "working" to enable that.

So allow the person still in employment to formally allocate half his/her salary to their partner, eg by asking the employer to pay half their salary to the partner. It would count as the partner's income for everything, tax, pensions, equal pay audits etc. It would be just like a "salary sacrifice" scheme to pay for childcare.

It would reflect the real world, that a man (usually) with a family spreads his salary across the family, it's not really all his income. It would mean his wife/partner gets proper pay and pension contributions for her role in the family. It would massively reduce the pay of (usually) men who support a wife and family. It would quite likely show a gender pay gap in favour of women! Since women are less likely to financially support a partner and family than a man.

Just by looking at things differently, you can turn perceived discrimination on its head!

lisyloo

I totally agree in theory,
There’s a practical issue with employer pensions though.

I’ve had 6 employers, of which only one (a very small startup) was prepared to let me do what I wanted with my pension pot and that was mostly to do with the fact that they were too small to set up a scheme (would probably be easier now than the 90s).
All other employers have insisted I use their pension scheme, presumably for their ease.

Also tax wise you can only get personal tax relief and NI relief on your pension. This is individual.

Also isn’t it fair to say that people could already split their money privately if they wanted to (playing devils advocate to a degree).
A working partner can currently give a spouse money tax free and they can have a fair split on divorce.
The above comment on tax/NI still applies though.
My point is that there is nothing stopping a couple being fair with their own money right now and I’m sure many are.

DairyQueen

zagfles wrote: »

Age-equivalent pay isn't significantly lower amongst younger women. Older women, yes. And the overall gender pay gap, which business now have to report, isn't age adjusted which makes the figures look worse than they actually are.

Do you mean gender equivalent pay isn't significantly lower amongst younger women? If so, I haven't seen any stats to that effect. Could you provide a link?

Assuming that this is the case, and assuming that 'younger women' are defined as those under 40, the impact of taking time out to provide care compounds over time. The consequence being that: "Women’s pension wealth is 51% of men’s pension wealth by their late 50s". The biggest factors identified are: 1) working patterns and 2) (lower) lifetime salary. The latter being the result of 1) and also of the gender pay gap - which becomes worse with age because of, yep, 1). See here.

zagfles wrote: »

Yet you then say...So you blame testosterone for causing behavioural differences in men, resulting in men taking more risk, men more likely to end up in prison, on the streets, etc, ie all the disadvantages men face, yet not for any of the advantages?

You reckon that behavioural differences, possibily caused by hormones, don't result in men taking more risks in their professional lives, being more assertive when it comes to applying for that highly paid job, asking their boss for a rise, being more focused on their career etc?

I do indeed suggest that testosterone levels are a factor in risk-taking behaviours. Not the only factor but significant. However, I don't believe that 'risk-taking', whether or not the result of hormones, contributes to male advantage in the workplace. Nor do I believe that testosterone is linked positively to 'assertiveness', nor that this trait has any link to career success or higher pay.

'Lack of assertiveness' was an over-used justification for paying women less in the late 20th century. Assertiveness adds zero to an individual's skills or productivity. Assertiveness is not a trait required by either gender in order to discuss increases in pay, manage people or projects, make decisions, analyse information, create and design, set objectives, start one's own business, teach, sell, form ideas and implement them, etc.

'Focusing on' one's career is a luxury often denied those with caring responsibilities. Nothing whatsoever to do with 'assertiveness' or, ahem, 'testosterone'. Simply a question of the number of hours available to devote to one's career/work. You miss the point that males are still more likely to focus on their career because there is a female taking care of their children and/or their elderly parents.

Ironically, increasingly the family member who relieves career/work-focused women of childcare isn't their domestic partner but their mother/mother-in-law.

zagfles wrote: »

So if we can blame hormones for a 2000% higher male prison population, we can certainly blame them for a 10-15% or so age-adjusted pay gap.

It's actually 18% and hormones play zero part in the gender pay gap.

zagfles wrote: »

More equality in the field of child custody, maternity/paternity leave etc will naturally lead to more equality in pay, and hence pensions. But as above - they are relavent. Looking after children is probably the main reason for the gender pay and hence the pension gap. If there were more equality there, then there'd be more equality in pay and pensions.

Apparently not. It seems that men who are able to gain custody of their children then rely on a woman to care for them. A new partner becomes the carer or their mother steps-in.

So, women are now becoming disadvantaged at both ends of their working lives. They are providing care for their (or partner's) children when they are younger or caring for their grandchildren and/or parents when in their 50s/60s.

Grandparents providing childcare is a recent phenomenon. The expectation is that women should have equal work/career opportunities but men are not compromising in order that they may do so. The compromises are made by older generations of... women. Increasing longevity means that women in their 50s/60s are also caring for elderly parents for longer.

zagfles wrote: »

The idea that legislation should directly discriminate to somehow compensate for societal discrimination or even behavioural differences caused by hormones or whatever is ridiculous. The same argument could be used for men having lower pension ages as they are likely to die younger, due in part to societal discrimination, as well as to hormones and biology.

I did not suggest that societal discrimination should be addressed by implementing discriminatory legislation. What I am suggesting is that women are so far behind men in overall pension provision that removing the one aspect of legislation that discriminated in their favour will simply exacerbate the profound inequality of outcome on total retirement provision (SP and non-SP). Addressing age differences in SP that favour women makes zero difference to the massive difference in non-SP provision which has not been addressed.

So, I understand the satisfaction that men (and many women) express at the removal of the SP age advantage previously afforded women. However, there seems to be a policy of silence that, despite this, and despite their higher longevity, women receive lower SP weekly and over their lifetimes. Yes, the nSP will address much of that disparity in time. It will, however, take decades as the legacy of lower earnings/NI contributions applies to all cohorts of women in transition and who retired under the oSP. There is also an inverse correlation between female age and SP. Her age in 2016 will determine the likelihood of her receiving the same SP as a male of her age. The older she was then, the greater the likely disparity.

There also seems to be a general reluctance to acknowledge that the (much higher) non-SP pension advantage enjoyed by men is actually increasing.

It's easy to support revocation of one discriminatory law when this is viewed out of context. The context being that women were already receiving less lifetime SP than men despite receiving it for 5 years longer. It is much more difficult to address the fundamental causes of the large disparity in non-SP pension income.

It seems to me that we are cherry-picking to appease those who want to believe that pension gender inequality is now addressed. We can all tick that off the list as, in a few decades, women will be receiving the same SP as men. Indeed, they may receive more over their lifetimes by the end of the century courtesy of 2.2 (or more) extra years of life. So what are older women caught in transition (and who will be dead before this nirvana comes about) whinging about?

IMHO addressing the non-SP disparity is the real long-term challenge. The answer isn't for grandmothers to take over the care of their grandchildren. This will just delay the point at which pension gender inequality begins. I'm sorry guys (and I mean 'guys') but you need to make some concessions and consider that having children (or elderly parents) means that your's may be the career that is interrupted or abruptly ended.

I will now don my tin hat and duck.

lisyloo

DairyQueen wrote: »

I'm sorry guys (and I mean 'guys') but you need to make some concessions and consider that having children (or elderly parents) means that your's may be the career that is interrupted or abruptly ended.

The problem is that careers as opposed to jobs make it hard to share the care burdens.

So for example if one partner has accountancy, technology or medical qualifications and the other does not (perhaps because they looked after the children) then it’s really hard to turn that situation around as one with have a much greater earning capacity than the other.

I don’t believe anyone has to look after parent these days if they don’t want to (of course they may choose to).

Day care can be provided up to 4 times a day.
Once someone if beyond that then residential care is available.
I understand that some people may want to, but it is not the case these days that anyone is forced to give up their job and care (it used to be the case).

xylophone

But here (given the ages of the spouses involved), is an unusual situation....

https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/pensions/article-7555243/Can-husband-claim-state-pension-wifes-NI-record.html

colsten

Afraid_of_Kittens wrote: »

Do correct me if I am wrong...

...It was a man who took the British Government to the European Court of Human Rights that it was unfair he had to wait until 65 for his pension when women could get theirs at 60. This was blatant sex discrimination.

The Court agreed that he was being discriminated against and told the UK Government to fix it.

The Govenments fix was to raise the retirement age for women to 65.

You are wrong, and I am correcting you . You are mixing up two unrelated matters. The Barber case you are referring to was indeed brought by a man, but it was entirely about occupational pensions.

State pensions are totally different from occupational pensions, and no European Court has jurisdiction over state pensions, or other benefits. The state pension age was NOT equalised because of the Barber case but because of the reasons given in this Budget speech.

spadoosh

@Dairyqueen, how old are you?

Im 32 and anecdotally of course, id say about 90% of the couples i know has the woman as the breadwinner.

colsten

DairyQueen wrote: »

Do you really believe that, if these women had experienced the same opportunity to accrue retirement income at the level of their male equivalents, that they would be protesting?

As a woman (of WASPI age), yes, I absolutely do believe they would still be protesting. Many of the protesters have a lot more total pension than many men, and than many younger people. They rarely ever mentioned the pension gap in the first few years of the protests. It's only recently that they have cordoned on to it, after pay gap and pension gap had a higher profile in the media, and was found a convenient bandwagon to jump on.

These women don't have true equality in mind, otherwise their campaign would at least include 1950s men who have to exist on ESA and JSA until they qualify for their state pension. Instead, the protesters never once mentioned that the Pension Credit age was rising in line with the female state pension age. It is nothing short of totally disgraceful that they don't care about people in need, simply on the grounds that those people are men.

DairyQueen

spadoosh wrote: »

@Dairyqueen, how old are you?

Im 32 and anecdotally of course, id say about 90% of the couples i know has the woman as the breadwinner.

I'm older than my natural teeth and very much older than my dental implants

I'm delighted that you can report a high percentage of female breadwinners but the stats suggest this is atypical even for your age group. Of the same-age couples that you know with children are 90% of the men the primary carer? Who gave up working, or now works part-time, or has changed career, or earns relatively less, since junior came along?

I would be delighted if you report that things are changing.

For the record, I am 60 and child-free. I had a successful career and am fortunate to have accrued a decent pension before the carer obligation (not 'choice' lisyloo) threw me a curved ball.

I am of an age to have now known five generations of working women. I recall the experience of my grandmothers very clearly and am now witnessing the working lives of my stepdaughters and the grandchildren of my friends and cousins.

Educational opportunities for women have equalised during my lifetime but women still earn less than men on average and work less years. They accrue far less pension. Their jobs and careers still take a backseat to childcare and the consequences compound over the years.

Little has changed and little will change until both men and women share responsibility for earning and for childcare.

As I hope I have made clear, I am not pro discriminatory legislation. I am, however, against targeting the one aspect of pension legislation that favours women without addressing the fundamental issues that have created such an obvious inequality of pension outcome in favour of men.

Accident of fate (no children and entering IT in its infancy) meant that my experience was atypical. There is no way that I would have the pension I have now if I had children.

Women without benefit of good incomes for reasonably long periods suffer disproportionately. It's those women whom I see as the casualties of the pension age increase. Personally, I am happy to receive my (full) state pension at the same age as men. I have known about the increase since the 1990s. I have benefited from the nSP as I was contracted-out for a period. I have nothing to complain about. Many more women will now wait for x years to receive a pension that is substantially lower than the male age-equivalent. Many were ignorant of the increase. Amazing as this seems I know many retired, intelligent women who were unaffected by the increase and are still ignorant of it. The whole issue has passed them by. If it was so well-publicised why on earth have these women failed to register something so momentous?

Either we want equality, or we don't. That means equality of opportunity and equality of outcome. Right now, and regardless of age, typically, neither gender has either. Men do not have the opportunity to be the primary carers of their children, women don't have the opportunity to earn as much income/pension as men. The latter situation is well-documented whilst the former is marginalised. Arguably, women have a lifelong advantage in their relationship with their children.