Women's wages are 18% lower and pensions are on average 15-30% lower than men's across Europe
How much of this is a legacy of the past? That is, when the rate of pension depends on one's wage level in his or her active life, then the differences of men and women retiring in the last few decades are generations in which the gender wage difference was higher and many women did not have a wage at all (being housewifes).
Which leads to the question: are there any proposals by FERPA or unions to compensate this effect specifically?
Those living in Portugal, UK and Belgium are most at risk of poverty.
Belgium? *Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
A lot of the gap is due to legacy of the past, certainly very much the case for the UK where women who worked were paid less than men as a matter of course, were heavily segregated in the labour market, and those who married had no income or pension of their own, since their husbands were expected to provide. In the UK, a large enough gap in employment and National Insurance contributions had a very heavy impact on eligibility for a full state pension.
The resolutions include proposals to ensure that pensions are at a level that people can live on without being in poverty (in the UK, means testing is used to provide benefits to top up income, they may as well provide a state pension that people can live on - except many who are eligible for benefits don't claim due to stigma and complexity).
They call for universality of pension rights, decent access to health care and social care services and for active labour market policies for women, facilitating access to the labour market (and appropriate education and training) and to stem the rise of casual hire-and-fire approaches to employment, and provision of better childcare and care services.
Not sure what Belgium is doing so badly wrong, I don't know anything about their employment policies. Ad astra per aspera
6. WE DEMAND that the poverty risk for older women be specifically targeted by providing better survivors' benefits for all partners and by improving indexation of state pensions and minimum pensions linked to increases in non-indexed wages and salaries.
...where I have to ask what the second means (non-indexed wages and salaries).
Re Belgium, the linked release contains nothing about it; does your paper version say more, f.e. stats? *Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
Indexation is the linking of state pensions with earnings (rather than with inflation for example) so it ensures that the state pension will gradually increase over time in line with earnings. Ad astra per aspera
By linking with non-indexed wages, isn't it making a demand for the link with average earnings to be restored?
The UK state pension used to be linked to average earnings, but that was stopped by the Thatcher government, who tied it to inflation (usually lower) instead. Hence the erosion in real terms of the amount of the basic pension.
My mother gave up work when she had me. It was the done thing, even though she was quite successful in her career (and caused much resentment by getting promotions some male colleagues thought should be theirs by right).
My parents have a comfortable civil service pension. However, if I remember correctly, the standard survivor's benefit was one third. My father paid a large sum in extra contributions (and, caught between rule changes, I think also had to accept a lower pension) in order to increase that to one half. Given that most of her expenses would be unchanged, half of comfortable isn't enough, and if he dies first, she will be reliant on their investment income. If they weren't lucky/thrifty enough to have that cushion, I would be far more worried than I am.
