Equal Pay? or Gender Pay Gap?

Interesting judgement by the Supreme Court about Equality for Pensions.

Wonder how many of the judges were male?

Baroness Brenda Hale.jpg
President of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom

 

Let’s take a woman approaching pension age.

Will she have risen as fast up the firm?

Will she have taken years out for child bearing /rearing?

Will she be likely to be earning an equal salary to her male counterparts?

Which will allow for maximum pension contributions?

Will she have bi-passed promotion, to care for aged parents.

Wil she need a longer pension, since she will live longer than her ?(husband)

Will she be expected to care for him, as he ages, becomes ill or demented,

perhaps even at the same time caring for his or her parents.

The ‘married woman’s stamp’ allow married women to pay a lower rate of National Insurance Contributions, since they would be depending on their husband in retirement and claiming a partial pension based on his National Insurance record. As a result they were allowed to pay less into the system.  The ability to opt to pay this ‘reduced stamp’ was ended in 1978,

When the new state pension was introduced, the idea of claiming a pension based on someone else’s contributions largely disappeared.   This created a potential unfairness for women who had paid the married woman’s stamp.   If they had spent their working life expecting to claim a (partial) pension based on their husband’s record and then suddenly found they could no longer do so, they could have been left with no pension at all, or in one woman’s case 30p

Just saying.

As did the Express:

£160bn …the staggering amount Britain’s older generation contributes to our economy
CAMPAIGNERS have demanded that Britain’s pensioners continue to receive extra financial help in retirement as latest figures show they contribute £160billion annually to the economy. The figure undermines the call to cut socalled “pensioner perks” like the winter fuel allowance and bus passes because they are deemed too expensive at £5billion.

 

Caring for sick or elderly loved ones adds another £95billion saved by the NHS and social care system which would otherwise have to step in. Informal childcare is worth £7.7billion to the economy. Caring for sick or elderly loved ones adds another £95billion saved by the NHS and social care system which would otherwise have to step in. Informal childcare is worth £7.7billion to the economy.

https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/1122332/pension-perks-stay-contribute-billions-to-economy

It is always a little more complex if you look at the context.

©2019ionthecity.com