How to prove I paid NI from 1959 - 1977

I thought it dated back to when married men were first given pensions in the early 1900s. At first men had to wait until their wives also reached the same pension age as men before they could get an additional amount for them.

On the basis that men often married women a few years younger than themselves, this meant that married men were often having to support two people on the same money as an unmarried man. The law was changed so that a man could get an additional payment for his wife when she turned 60 not 65. And that's how 60 became the de facto pensionable age for women whether she contributed to her own pension or not.

That is my understanding from a history of the state pension that I read somewhere a long time ago but happy to be corrected if that's wrong.

www.web40571.clarahost.co.uk/statepensionage/SPA_history.htm#:~:text=In%201940%20pension%20age%20for,as%20the%20husband%20reached%2065.&text=From%201948%2C%20men%20had%20to,under%20the%20National%20Insurance%20scheme.

The age when women could receive a SP was changed more quickly because of EU Equality Laws according to this history of SPA.

Ah! Thank you. Right reason but later than I thought. 1940 just as growstuff said. I had it in my head that it was a 100 years ago. I must have been thinking of 1925. I hadn't realised it had taken seventeen years to reduce the pensions age from 70 to 65. And here we are, almost a hundred years later, with talk of pension age going back up to 71 by 2050.

It all sounds so frustrating. Definitely not an equal world.

I was just wondering whether you can claim pension credit to top your pension up?
My mum had pension credit as her state pension didn’t reach a certain threshold. It carried extra ‘benefits’ with it eg much cheaper glasses. But she was a widow and I don’t know if they take your husband’s income into account.

TinSoldier

Ah! Thank you. Right reason but later than I thought. 1940 just as growstuff said. I had it in my head that it was a 100 years ago. I must have been thinking of 1925. I hadn't realised it had taken seventeen years to reduce the pensions age from 70 to 65. And here we are, almost a hundred years later, with talk of pension age going back up to 71 by 2050.

Life expectancy has risen since then.