In this week’s Pensions Goth blog I talk about how we can close the pensions gender gap, how tomorrow is the last day to pay to fill in gaps in your National Insurance record missed since 2006, and insights from Morgan Vine at the TUC Pensions Conference on Wednesday 2nd April 2025.
Many thanks to the rising star that is Anna Brain (PPI, NEST Insight) for inspiring this blog! 😊 She did so by pointing out to me that tomorrow, Saturday 5th April, is the last day for people to pay to fill gaps in their National Insurance record missed since 2006. We need 35 years of credits for a full State Pension, so people – mainly women who took time out to care for children – with less than 35 years of credit will receive a lower State Pension income in retirement. Women who claimed child benefit will generally have been credited in, but women who didn’t claim child benefit may have gaps. After tomorrow the system resets, and you can only fill gaps on a six-year rolling basis. Complex, isn’t it!
I was at the TUC Pensions Conference on Wednesday and sat on a panel with Morgan Vine from Independent Age, and Josie Irwin from UNISON. The panel was chaired by the extremely competent and engaging Michelle Codrington-Rogers. Morgan Vine, an expert on the benefits system, explained that carers just above the eligibility threshold for Pension Credit can claim for Carers Allowance even if their income is too high and, while they won’t then be eligible for Carers Allowance, the process of applying adjusts their deemed income making them now eligible for Pension Credit. Also complex. Very!
For women who provide the majority of care for children and older people – such as a spouses and parents – filling gaps in National Insurance records and applying for Carers Allowance in the above scenario are just two examples of how we can boost retirement income.
The panel discussion then moved on to education and how we can help people to understand the system better. I always wonder at this – if the system is so complex that people need lessons to understand it, do we not need to make it simpler?
There is also the occasional suggestion that women need more educating about the financial impact of work and childbearing. There is an element of victim blaming in this – are we going to educate women not to have children, or not to work part-time while also providing potentially all of the childcare at home? Women have lower retirement incomes mainly because caring predominantly falls to them and is not compensated in the same way as paid employment. As far as I can see there are three options for genuinely closing the gender pensions gap:
- Compensating caring as highly as a lifetime of paid work.
- Sharing household pension saving – through single household pots or through higher earners contributing to carer’s pots throughout the lifetime (this would still leave single mothers with lower incomes, though).
- Sharing caring equally – men take time out from work and work flexibly or part-time, to juggle care to the same degree as women.
Number three would require a cultural shift and a shift in employer policies – many employers still offer less time for paternity leave than for maternity leave. However, if caring was shared equally, there would be no motherhood penalty. There may be a parenthood penalty, but I imagine if this affected men as well as women, it might become less acceptable…
So, let’s not look at how to educate women to work harder, or sacrifice more, when so much is already expected of them. Let’s instead look at simplifying the system and equalising it – it’s time for society and policy to catch up to the new world!
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