I knew these changes were happening way back in 1995 as a teenage boy so do find it hard to believe that so many of these women couldn't have found out (especially as most seem to be fairly intelligent women) BUT the finding is they are 'owed' compo - should it be paid out? For me its about priorities should we really be paying £1000 each to people most/many of whom don't need it and a large % of whom would have been informed by letter of the changes?

https://www.theguardian.com/money/2024/ ... spi-ruling

CathedralCounty wrote: March 22nd, 2024, 2:16 pm I knew these changes were happening way back 1995 as a teenage boy so do find it hard to believe that many of these women couldn't have found out (especially as most seem to be fairly intelligent women) BUT the finding is they are 'owed' compo - should it be paid out? For me its about priorities should we really be paying £1000 each to people most/many of whom don't need it and a large % of whom would have been informed by letter of the changes?

https://www.theguardian.com/money/2024/ ... spi-ruling

You miss the point entirely. The changes proposed in 1995 were meant to be phased in gradually until 2020.
The coalition government then moved the goalposts in 2011 and brought the changes forward to 2018.
Many women born in the 1950s had little or no notice of this. The official report has agreed that many were not informed at all of the 2011 decision.
If you’ve paid NI all your life only to find out at the last minute that you have to wait your pension then I think recompense is in order.

Jonesy3 wrote: March 22nd, 2024, 3:01 pm

CathedralCounty wrote: March 22nd, 2024, 2:16 pm I knew these changes were happening way back 1995 as a teenage boy so do find it hard to believe that many of these women couldn't have found out (especially as most seem to be fairly intelligent women) BUT the finding is they are 'owed' compo - should it be paid out? For me its about priorities should we really be paying £1000 each to people most/many of whom don't need it and a large % of whom would have been informed by letter of the changes?

https://www.theguardian.com/money/2024/ ... spi-ruling

You miss the point entirely. The changes proposed in 1995 were meant to be phased in gradually until 2020.
The coalition government then moved the goalposts in 2011 and brought the changes forward to 2018.
Many women born in the 1950s had little or no notice of this. The official report has agreed that many were not informed at all of the 2011 decision.
If you’ve paid NI all your life only to find out at the last minute that you have to wait your pension then I think recompense is in order.

I don't miss the point and I deliberately capitalised the 'BUT' - my point was should the government pay out billions to these women? (whether or not the decision that these women were 'owed' compo was correct) not mutually exclusive I know but there are a lot more priorities on the list - for me I think [sadly] both main parties will cave and offer a bride to this WASPI cohort to try to get their votes - so a nice holiday for a load of retirees then - good for them but the money could be put to far better use.

Regardless of whether individual letters were sent you’d have to have been living under a rock not to know these changes were happening (the BBC interviewed a retired head teacher - these aren’t thick people! I get *some* women may genuinely not have known but in all conscience how many could genuinely say they did not know even if belatedly) - even if we take the absolute worst case 7 years notice isn’t long to re plan for retirement but it’s still 7 whole years and is not 'last minute' and the 'paid in all your life' is moot because while those contributions theoretically guarantee a pension they do not guarantee a retirement age (i.e., I started paying NI in a part time job back in the late 1990's when the retirement age was fixed at 65 - its now changed to be at least 68 for me which has been well communicated but not by any individual letter/email/text annoying its changing as I have to wait for at least 3 more years to get my state pension but I can't & won't claim I don't know about it).

Women on average outlive men by about four years. WASPI women were badly treated. However my parents, both born long before the Second World War, both received a pension. My mother retired at 60 and received 27 years of pension. My father at 65 only received 17 years. This fact should not detract from the campaign of WASPI women but when it comes to gender discrimination for 100 years all men were well and truly shafted.

Stan A. Einstein wrote: March 23rd, 2024, 2:33 pm Women on average outlive men by about four years. WASPI women were badly treated. However my parents, both born long before the Second World War, both received a pension. My mother retired at 60 and received 27 years of pension. My father at 65 only received 17 years. This fact should not detract from the campaign of WASPI women but when it comes to gender discrimination for 100 years all men were well and truly shafted.

I agree, odd that in the UK we hear near constantly about historical/current injustices against women/girls but never against men/boys – we overlook that conscription sent millions of men to their deaths in both world wars and post war (1949-60) robbed men (only men) of 2 years due to national service (which I sort of agree with but should be for both genders) laterally we talk about how awful it is women are locked up for minor offences (they rarely are in fact) but ignore the far harsher treatment men receive under the UK justice system* Just two of many examples where men fare worse (or equally as ‘worse’) as women in many areas but that we ignore it simply because a tiny percent of power is held [mostly] by white men which then seems to condemn all men to the ‘powerful/bad/oppressor’ bucket and therefore not worthy of support.

*A paper examining gender sentencing disparities in a large samples of assault, burglary and drugs offences found that male offenders are subjected to significantly harsher sentences, even when controlling for mitigating factors and case characteristics. Men were 2.84 [3] times more likely than women to receive custodial sentence for the offence of assault, 1.89 [twice as] more likely for the offence of burglary, and 2.72 [3 times] more likely for offence related to drugs. For offences of assault, the gender factor was stronger than any other ‘harm and culpability’ factor with the exception of the ‘with intent to commit serious harm’ factor.

CathedralCounty wrote: March 25th, 2024, 9:34 am

Stan A. Einstein wrote: March 23rd, 2024, 2:33 pm Women on average outlive men by about four years. WASPI women were badly treated. However my parents, both born long before the Second World War, both received a pension. My mother retired at 60 and received 27 years of pension. My father at 65 only received 17 years. This fact should not detract from the campaign of WASPI women but when it comes to gender discrimination for 100 years all men were well and truly shafted.

I agree, odd that in the UK we hear near constantly about historical/current injustices against women/girls but never against men/boys – we overlook that conscription sent millions on men to their deaths in both world wars and post war (1949-60) robbed men (only men) of 2 years due to national service (which I sort of agree with but should be for both genders) laterally we talk about how awful it is women are locked up for minor offences (they rarely are in fact) but ignore the far harsher treatment men receive under the UK justice system* Juts two of many examples where men fare worse (or equally as ‘worse’) as women in many areas but that we ignore it simply because a tiny percent of power is held [mostly] by white men which then seems to condemn all men to the ‘powerful/bad/oppressor’ bucket and therefore not worthy of support.

*A paper examining gender sentencing disparities in a large samples of assault, burglary and drugs offences found that male offenders are subjected to significantly harsher sentences, even when controlling for mitigating factors and case characteristics. Men were 2.84 [3] times more likely than women to receive custodial sentence for the offence of assault, 1.89 [twice as] more likely for the offence of burglary, and 2.72 [3 times] more likely for offence related to drugs. For offences of assault, the gender factor was stronger than any other ‘harm and culpability’ factor with the exception of the ‘with intent to commit serious harm’ factor.

Yes there are many areas of life in which life is harder for men than women, but usually we only hear about the injustices to women. There is currently a bill going through parliament (I believe) about violence against women and girls. However it is never reported that every year in the England and Wales two and a half times as many men are murdered compared to women.

Blackandamber wrote: March 26th, 2024, 1:56 pm

CathedralCounty wrote: March 25th, 2024, 9:34 am

Stan A. Einstein wrote: March 23rd, 2024, 2:33 pm Women on average outlive men by about four years. WASPI women were badly treated. However my parents, both born long before the Second World War, both received a pension. My mother retired at 60 and received 27 years of pension. My father at 65 only received 17 years. This fact should not detract from the campaign of WASPI women but when it comes to gender discrimination for 100 years all men were well and truly shafted.

I agree, odd that in the UK we hear near constantly about historical/current injustices against women/girls but never against men/boys – we overlook that conscription sent millions on men to their deaths in both world wars and post war (1949-60) robbed men (only men) of 2 years due to national service (which I sort of agree with but should be for both genders) laterally we talk about how awful it is women are locked up for minor offences (they rarely are in fact) but ignore the far harsher treatment men receive under the UK justice system* Juts two of many examples where men fare worse (or equally as ‘worse’) as women in many areas but that we ignore it simply because a tiny percent of power is held [mostly] by white men which then seems to condemn all men to the ‘powerful/bad/oppressor’ bucket and therefore not worthy of support.

*A paper examining gender sentencing disparities in a large samples of assault, burglary and drugs offences found that male offenders are subjected to significantly harsher sentences, even when controlling for mitigating factors and case characteristics. Men were 2.84 [3] times more likely than women to receive custodial sentence for the offence of assault, 1.89 [twice as] more likely for the offence of burglary, and 2.72 [3 times] more likely for offence related to drugs. For offences of assault, the gender factor was stronger than any other ‘harm and culpability’ factor with the exception of the ‘with intent to commit serious harm’ factor.

Yes there are many areas of life in which life is harder for men than women, but usually we only hear about the injustices to women. There is currently a bill going through parliament (I believe) about violence against women and girls. However it is never reported that every year in the England and Wales two and a half times as many men are murdered compared to women.

Oddly when this is pointed out we [men and women who support men] get shouted down – there are few if any forums for men/women who support men & boys to air these injustices (because that would be ‘misogynistic’?!) so naturally men often point out within the context of issues raised by/about women (say domestic violence gets posted about online and men/women who support men pipe up ‘man too in fact 40% of victims of domestic abuse are men usually at the hands of women') - these people then get shouted down again for 'hijacking' women’s issues and ‘men should start their own campaigns’ erm when they do they get demonized for excluding women! (‘men’s rights activist’ is a pejorative term – unfairly in my view although I’m not one of them).

'Gamma Bias' offers a framework for this - briefly explained…Gamma bias operates within a matrix of four possible judgments about gender: doing good (celebration), doing harm (perpetration), receiving good (privilege) and receiving harm (victimhood). The theory predicts that within mainstream western cultures, masculinity is highlighted only in the domain of 'privilege' and 'perpetration' but hidden in the domains of 'celebration' and 'victimhood'. This means for example that the heroism performed mainly by men (e.g. firemen) will be gender neutralised ('firefighters') by the inclusion of a small minority of women, whereas a much larger proportion of female perpetrators and male victims will be excluded from our highly gendered narratives and policies about sexual and domestic violence.

https://www.centreformalepsychology.com ... gamma-bias

https://www.bps.org.uk/psychologist/gam ... new-theory

Does anyone believe that the extending of the state pension age is finished with? I’m not convinced I’ll receive my state pension at 67 and, if I do, I’m relatively convinced it’ll be means tested at some point.

I heard on R4 this morning that the government had plans to put it up to 68 soon to help pay for their 'triple lock' promise.