1 in 8 plan to retire in 2018 with no pension

I had one job I worked in for 2 years. When I left (at the age of 24) I was given a certificate for a £10 a year pension at 60, based on the payments into the fund.

The money in the pension was invested in Legal and General and at 60. I received a letter to say I could have a pension if £10 a year, or a lump sum of £247, (the exact amount I and my employer had paid into the scheme 34 years before) £169 after tax.

At the time the pension was accrued deferred pensions were frozen at the value they were when you left the company. Shortly after this the law changed so that the money had to be treated like any other investment and increase in value in line with the fund it was invested in.

In the 34 years L&G had had my money in real terms its' values was now £2470 and if invested in the stockmarket it would have risen to nearly £6000 - and I got back exactly what I had paid in, less tax, £169.

As a WASPI woman, 63 with another 3 years to go till my state pension kicks in, I just count myself very lucky that a) I am not on my own and b) I have a modest local government pension from my last employment that will keep the wolf from the door till then. That's the only pension I had that was worth paying into during a varied working life. I wasn't allowed to join one scheme back in the day when working part-time for family reasons. Another was embezzled by the trustees and I received nothing from it. I didn't pay in long enough on another to accrue benefits, so my contributions were refunded. One company I worked for took higher contributions from its female workers because we were, of course, going to access the pension earlier than the men , and the meagre sum accrued (which may with luck stretch to a modest bottle of wine a month) is subject to special conditions that mean I can't get to it before my higher state pension age. Because I was opted out for some of the years I paid into these corkers, my state pension under the new system will be drastically reduced.

Apart from the local authority pension, I would have been better off just paying into SERPS. I do encourage my children to put what they can into their company schemes, because for them there isn't an option, is there? But the advice is given through gritted teeth,

Maggie - the situation of the Waspi women is just dreadful. I feel so fortunate to have been born earlier than my sisters and many of my friends. I've scraped in!

To go back to the OP and the questions. I thought about a pension in my early 20s. I knew, long before marriage hove in view, that I would not transfer to the married woman's stamp. I think it was because I have always been very independent and wanted to have my own income in retirement - and had other women in my family who thought in a similar fashion.

The problem then was that so much of the law around pensions made it difficult for women to accrue pension entitlement, apart from state pension. If you left a job after less than five years, you could not leave your pension payments invested in the fund, but had to have your contributions repaid, the exclusion of part time workers from pension schemes, also disadvantaged women, the freezing in value of deferred pensions also led to poor payouts. A lot of these problems have now been resolved but leaves any women working before that happened at a real disadvantage.

I started to pay into a pension at 40, it was the first opportunity I had, and I tried to make up for lost time by making extra payments.

Are younger people more aware of the need to save for a pension? Yes, I think they are. When I was younger many women, especially young women, were very complacent, divorce did not feature in their game plan and they saw it as either the state or their DH's responsibility to provide a pension for both of them, so they transferred to the married women's stamp when they married and left it at that.

Like many others, I didn't stay long enough in a job when young to keep the pension, I was in two that were refunded, another had no pension scheme. When I joined the NHS after having my family, I didn't work enough hours to join the pension scheme, so I was 40 when I started paying a pension which now pays around the same as my state pension - I'm a widow so it's only me. My husband's 45 year NI contributions count for nothing.
I also think it unfair that, those of us born early 50s had to work past 60 but do not benefit from the new higher state pension.

I married in 1958, although I worked for 7 more years there was no pension scheme for women in place. Also no jobs were kept open , in fact women with children were not expected to work if their hisba were able to keep them.
Some, not many , returned to work when their children started school but my second child was born almost 5 years after my first so I had been out of the job market for some time.
By then my H was earning a good salary so we took the decision that I would stay at home.

I posted too soon and then posted another epistle, it disappeared into the ether. The gist was that I regretted what I did although it seemed right at the time.
Women have far more choices now, they should take advantage of them.
My pension now ,on my H's contribution is £296 a month,.

I worry about future pensions for younger people who are on zero hours contracts or working in the gig economy, paying high rents and possibly repaying university loans (if they earn enough).
With low and erratic earnings how on earth can they make private pension contributions that would result in a decent pension income in the future?
Also declining home ownership means they will not have the option of releasing equity from a house when they retire.
The raising of the retirement age will mean many will be expected to work even as their health deteriorates in their sixties and seventies.
I’m lucky to have enough pension income to enjoy my retirement. But I’m worried that future generations of retirees will struggle financially.