Pensions

Changes in the State Pension Age for Women

MmH

There are around 350,000 Scotswomen affected by the transition to equality in men and women’s State Pension Age. The initial Westminster Pension Age Act was in 1995 and it set out a gradual pathway to equalise the pension age for men and women. But in 2011 a second Pension Age Act increased the rate of change for women and increased the overall pension age to above 66. This has created a group of women who are partially badly affected.  Women born in the mid-50s are losing six years of their State Pension.

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Pensioners in Scotland get less pension – because they don’t live as long

Alan Logue

Life expectancy in Scotland is currently lower than in the rest of the UK. On average between 2010-12, a 65 year-old male in the UK could be expected to live to around 83 years 5 months compared with 82 years 11 months in Scotland, and a 65 year-old female in the UK could expect to live to 85 years 11 months whereas in Scotland it was 84 years 6 months.

According to the Scottish government, this means that “a 65 year-old entitled to a total pension of £160 per week could expect the lifetime value of their state pension to be around £10,000 (men) or £11,000 (women) less in Scotland than in the UK as a whole”.

Pension difference from UK average
Pension difference from UK average

UK pensions among the worst in the developed world, study finds

Alan Logue

British workers can expect among the worst pensions in the developed world, according to a report from investment bank UBS, which compared the retirement outlook for a 50-year-old woman in major cities across the globe.

Pensions compared

How much a state plus “mandatory” pension will be worth at retirement as a proportion of current income, based on a 50-year-old female in each city
Singapore 73%
Sydney 72%
Paris 69%
Milan 67%
New York 55%
Tokyo 55%
Munich 50%
Zurich 48%
Toronto 42%
London 41%
Hong Kong 41%
Taipei 32%

Read the full article.

Treasury saves £5 billion a year as pension reforms leave more than one million women worse off

Alan Logue

The government must reconsider punishing changes to women’s pensions after it emerged earlier reforms boosted state coffers by more than £5 billion a year, campaigners say.

The Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) found more than one million women are worse-off by an average of £32 a week after the retirement age moved from 60 to 63.

The change, which happened between 2010 and 2016, has taken 1.1 million women off the pensions book, saving the UK Government £4.2bn on the state support and related benefits.

Read more at The National