1950s women "Fight Back Rally"

Until 2010 state pension age was 60 for women, 65 for men. Never heard women complaining about that when they demanded equality, even though statistically a man’s lifespan is shorter than a woman’s.

Martin Lewis supports the last Waspi rally
www.waspi.co.uk/2017/03/08/martin-lewis-encourages-waspi/

Will be interesting to see if he mentions anything in his "Pension related" programme tonight and is still supportive.

notgran I detest all this stuff where women are trying to turn the clock back to the time when there was no equalty. Who these women who are protesting, think they are kidding, gets me. State Pension age was changed decades ago, by law. I can't believe they didn't know. It all smacks of people thinking they will get some sort of compensation if they say they didn't know. Who would be paying for this compensation? Our children and their children, which can't be right.

Indeed Fair for gander and goose.

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Assume everyone knows there are two different state pension rates running concurrently.
Those who retired after April 2016 get the new rate which is over £40 per week more than those of us who retired before 2016 who receive the ‘old’ rate which is a difference of about £150 per month.

I have no idea why this isn’t being amalgamated even gradually. It doesn’t seem fair.
Maybe someone will enlighten me.

Would have loved. To get my pension at 60. Shattered and battered and 63!

Norah

notgran I detest all this stuff where women are trying to turn the clock back to the time when there was no equalty. Who these women who are protesting, think they are kidding, gets me. State Pension age was changed decades ago, by law. I can't believe they didn't know. It all smacks of people thinking they will get some sort of compensation if they say they didn't know. Who would be paying for this compensation? Our children and their children, which can't be right.

Indeed Fair for gander and goose.

So your justification for not compensating someone who has been treated badly is who will pay. How is that conducive to justice?

I have kept every letter from the Pension Service.

The last one informed me I had enough years to claim full state pension when I became 60..in fact more than enough as the qualifying years decreased by 5.

I was vaguely aware of changes to the state pension, but naively thought I would be personally informed, by letter, as in the past, if affected me..

I've personally lost out on 30k+, if I live long enough on the new higher state pension, all well and good, but I would rather have retired at 60, the extra 6 years of manual work has physically taken its toll on me.

"They didn't have women retire at 60 for womens benefit. It was because men generally married women a few years younger and it was thought that a retired man would need his wife at home to look after him". That is utter nonsense, from 1925 a contribution based pension came in. It was paid from age 65 and wasn't means tested. A married couple's rate of pension was paid if both spouses were aged 65 or more. Because many men had younger wives it meant that couples had to wait some years before they got the higher rate. In 1940 pension age for women was cut to 60 to try to ensure for most couples that the married rate would be paid as soon as the husband reached 65.

Just to clarify my position and why I should have strong views opposing the few women born in the 1950's who think they are entitled to some sort of compensation. I retired aged 65 having worked full time from aged 16. I had maternity leave twice but continued working full time and balancing childcare etc. As did many of my friends and colleagues born in the 1950's. We aren't as I have seen elsewhere, a rare breed of "I'm alright Jacks" but ordinary, mature women who kept ourselves informed.

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Most women saw little equality (in pay and/or promotion) for 40+ years of their working life, but apparently equalizing pension ages at the end of their working lives is equality. Many women of the 1950s generation were not allowed to join works pension schemes before 1975.
The notion that women would not be informed by letter about a 6 year change, while men were personally informed is beyond parody.
It breaks my heart to hear of women losing their health and possibly their homes, while some of the sisterhood say 'Well I knew all about it'. Personally in the mid-90s I never read a paper or regularly watched The News, as I was responsible for 2 kids and had a demanding full-time job.
Lastly it was men who encouraged women's retirement age being reduced in 1940.
www.web40571.clarahost.co.uk/statepensionage/SPA_history.htm

Well said, Chardy.

Chardy That is your experience and you are wrong to generalise by saying "most women". That is not my experience or anyone I have ever come across. There are very sadly men and women born in every decade not just the 1950's who for a variety of sad reasons are losing their health and others who may be in dire financial situations. The reason for that is not due to the change of the state pension age. I like you was responsible for my 2 children and worked full time and can remember being disappointed on hearing in the Budget and on tv news programmes that I would be affected by the change in State Penssion Age. My friends and/or colleagues discussed it many times over the next 3 decades. Laws change and we have to adapt to them, this one didn't affect us in the short term (like the seat belt law for example) but gave us a long term to plan for retirement. Regarding men making the decision in 1940 about women's state pension age, thank goodness we are part of the generation who achieved a more equal country, where gender must not be an issue in the workplace etc.

I had heard of a proposed rise in the pension age but had had no official notification.
Of course I support the equalisation of the pension age but I supported it better when men's pension age was reduced to match women's.

When I entered my last job at 55, I expected to retire at 60. I had enough contributions in. A few years later it was 65, then 66.

"Fortunately" (irony) after sudden medical issues, I was given early retirement on health grounds at 59 years and 10 months. Still didn't get my SP for 6 years but with my smallish occupational pension and by using every bit of its lump sum, I made it to SP age.

I support the equalisation of the pension age.
I think it should be lower for everybody.
I object to the speed with which it was implemented.
I don't think the rally will do any good.
I think it gives people a "well, they Wanted equality" stick to beat women with.

notgran I'm not entering into a to and fro discussion which takes over a thread, as has been seen on other threads recently.
I said Most women saw little equality (in pay and/or promotion) for 40+ years of their working life. 'Most women' is a majority, over half. I stand by that.

Chardy

notgran I'm not entering into a to and fro discussion which takes over a thread, as has been seen on other threads recently.
I said Most women saw little equality (in pay and/or promotion) for 40+ years of their working life. 'Most women' is a majority, over half. I stand by that.

*Chardy" You are incorrect in your statement regarding most women. I am more than happy to end our to and fro discussion with my valid point being the last word.

I agree notgran. It is not true of ‘most women’. It is not true of any woman I know.
I joined an occupational pension scheme when I started work in 1970 and was paid on a par with male colleagues throughout my career.
I too had a demanding full time job and a family, but I read newspapers and I listened to the news every day. There is no excuse for being uninformed about what is going on in the world.

Germanshepherdsmum your experience mirrors mine and millions more women. I do think the future state pension age increases to 68 and beyond are possibly worth the younger generations protesting about before they become law. However that is a seperate issue to this one, where a group of women think they are entitled to compensation for them not keeping themselves informed. Barmy.

I entirely agree notgran.

Can you explain then if you are interested in equality Gsm and notgran why all men were personally informed of a one year increase in their pension age but all women were not personally informed of a 6 year increase in theirs. How is that equality?
And why company pension schemes were not equal for women until 1990?
What's equal about any of this?

We have posts here saying that the posters received letters. Maybe not all men received letters? Impossible to prove that.
My occupational pension scheme from 1970 was open to all men and women and their contributions were the same percentage of salary, matched by the employer.

Chardy

Most women saw little equality (in pay and/or promotion) for 40+ years of their working life, but apparently equalizing pension ages at the end of their working lives is equality. Many women of the 1950s generation were not allowed to join works pension schemes before 1975.
The notion that women would not be informed by letter about a 6 year change, while men were personally informed is beyond parody.
It breaks my heart to hear of women losing their health and possibly their homes, while some of the sisterhood say 'Well I knew all about it'. Personally in the mid-90s I never read a paper or regularly watched The News, as I was responsible for 2 kids and had a demanding full-time job.
Lastly it was men who encouraged women's retirement age being reduced in 1940.
www.web40571.clarahost.co.uk/statepensionage/SPA_history.htm

Very well said, Chardy. Good for all the posters on here who never saw discrimination in their working lives, lucky, lucky them. But trying to deny that gender inequality was widespread is disingenuous to say the least.

I was paid in a couple of jobs on a lower scale than the men working alongside me in the same job. I wasn’t allowed to join one company pension scheme because it was only open to men, blocked from another because I was only working part-time due to family commitments (I wonder what proportion of men that applied to ?).

Of course the pension age had to be equalised. Other countries have managed to do it gradually, not rushed it through with such ineptitude that a small cohort of women were unfairly impacted by a change of 6 years, and dirt poor communication. The Parliamentary Ombudsman, after a lengthy investigation, has judged that maladministration took place.

www.ombudsman.org.uk/complaints-womens-state-pension-age

For many fortunate women with partners and/or other pensions to call on (and I am one of them) this was on a scale of slightly annoying to infuriating. For others, like friends of mine who struggled to carry on with low-paid manual jobs in failing health, and for one in particular who was suddenly widowed and bullied by the system into doing three cleaning jobs while barely able to walk without pain, it was life-changing.

And a bit of empathy for others less fortunate never goes amiss.

Germanshepherdsmum

We have posts here saying that the posters received letters. Maybe not all men received letters? Impossible to prove that.
My occupational pension scheme from 1970 was open to all men and women and their contributions were the same percentage of salary, matched by the employer.

Lucky you. Mine wasn't. I started work in 1976, and whereas the pension scheme was open to all, girls were given different jobs to boys with the same qualifications, so were very unlikely to progress in the same way and earn the same salaries (which would translate into pensions). I got wise to that and left to study again and went into academia, where the majority of women are on fixed-term contracts for years before getting full-time jobs. The gender pay gap in most universities is over 20%. I was not allowed to join the pension scheme as I was technically part-time, although I worked full-time during term time and was not paid in the holidays. I was 37 when I got a F/T job (like gold dust in my subject) and could pay into the pension scheme. By then I had two young children and couldn't afford to over pay. I don't know a single man who was in my situation, but knew several women.

I asked for a copy of all correspondence sent to me (using FOI), with particular reference to notification of the increase in SPA, and was told that no letter had been sent. Also, it was not made clear that being opted out would reduce entitlement to a state pension. I, like most people, glanced at pay slips, noted the large sums paid out in tax, NI and pension, but was more interested in the net sum that would pay the mortgage and for childcare.

Whether or not others think that I 'can afford' to lost 6 years of pension, or whether I 'should have known' about changes is irrelevant, IMO. People like me paid into the system on the express understanding that we would get a pension at 60 in return for funding the pensions of others (many of whom did not pay in). To renege on that and not bother to inform women is a disgrace, and to heap that on top of years of discrimination is even more of a travesty of justice.