Why are older women in the UK poor?

Quality in Ageing and Older Adults - Tập 7 Số 2 - Trang 23-32 - 2006
DeboraPrice1
1Institute of Gerontology, King's College London

Tóm tắt

Income in later life is an important factor in ensuring good health, quality of life, social engagement and subjective well‐being, yet it is now well known that women in later life are much poorer than men. In this article, data from the General Household Surveys 2001 and 2002 is used to show that this is largely the result of women's individual, and hidden, poverty within marriage. Dependency on men for income during the working life combines with the structure of the UK system to leave married men and married women with very unequal incomes after retirement. The median income of married and cohabiting women was only £53 per week, compared with men's £172; only 27% of married women had any private pension provision at all, compared with 75% of married men. Even among this 27% of women, half receive less than £35 a week from their pensions. Apart from the implications of this for potentially unequal access to money when cohabiting, the vast majority of women live alone for at least part of their retirement. When women become divorcees or widows, they cannot make up for lost income from their partners. Widows are thus relatively poor when compared with older women who have never married, but divorced women are on average the poorest of all. Social policies improving basic pension provision to all women in later life are urgently needed.

Từ khóa


Tài liệu tham khảo

Anderson T, 2001, The Gender Pay Gap

Arber S, 2004, Social Trends, 34, 1

Arber S, 2003, S Arber, K Davidson & J Ginn (Eds) Gender and Ageing: Changing roles and relationships 168-185. Maidenhead: Open University Press.

Bardasi E, 2002, Income In Later Life: Work history matters

10.1017/S0144686X02008632

Beveridge Sir W, 1942, Social Insurance and Allied Services

Department for Work and Pensions, 2002, Simplicity, security and choice: working and saving for retirement

Department for Work and Pensions, 2003, Income related benefits: estimates of take-up 2000/2001

Department for Work and Pensions, 2004, Households below average income 2002/03

Equal Opportunities Commission, 2005, Response to the Pensions Commission. Pensions: challenges and choices. Manchester: Equal Opportunities Commission

10.1017/S0144686X03001314

Analysis, 2005, The differences can be largely accounted for by the practice of imputation of data in the FRS - for further details contact the author. 14 The Commission reported on

10.1177/095001709371003

10.1017/S0047279400005924

Ginn J, 2002, Child and Family Law Quarterly, 14, 157

Harkness S, 2002, Times of Work and Gender. Manchester: Equal Opportunities Commission.

Harris J, 2005, Beveridge and pensions. Paper presented to Why has it all gone wrong? The past, present and future of British pensions

Kingsmill D, 2001, The Kingsmill Review of Women's Pay and Employment

Office for National Statistics, 2002, Mortality Statistics

Office for National Statistics, 2003, Census

Office for National Statistics, 2003, Entitled but not claiming? Pensioners, the MIG and pension credit

Pahl J, 2001, Sykes R, Bochel C & Ellisson N (Eds) Social Policy Review 13: Development and Debates.

Pensions Commission, 2004, Pensions: challenges and choices. The first report of the Pensions Commission

Shaw C, 1999, Population Trends, 95, 23

Smith A, 2004, Ageing & Society, 24, 937

10.1111/1467-954X.00136

10.1111/j.1467-954X.1994.tb00090.x

Walker A, 2001, Living in Britain: Results from the 2000 General Household Survey

Thông tin
Thông tin xuất bản

Quality in Ageing and Older Adults

Tập 7 Số 2

23-32

Thông tin tác giả