State Retirement Pensions: Females
(asked on 23rd January 2020) - View Source
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what estimate she has made of the number of women affected by changes to the state pension age, in (a) Barnsley East constituency, (b) Yorkshire and Humber and (c) the UK in each year until 2029-30.
The Labour Government 1997-2010, the Coalition 2010-2015 and the Conservative Government of 1992-1997 have taken a similar approach to raising State Pension age. As you are aware, from the 1940s until April 2010, the State Pension age was 60 for women and 65 for men. The decision to equalise the State Pension age for men and women dates back to 1995 and addresses a longstanding inequality between men and women's State Pension age. Without equalisation, women who reach the age of 60 in 2019 would be expected to spend over 40 per cent of their adult lives in receipt of State Pension, on average. Changes to the State Pension age put right a long lasting inequality which was based on an outdated rationale that women were dependent on their husband's incomes.
Further changes were recommended by the Pensions Commission in 2005 as it became clear that things were changing, for example, life expectancy was increasing and a State Pension age fixed at age 65 was not sustainable or fair between generations. It recommended that in the future State Pension age should increase in line with life expectancy and also recommended the introduction of a State Pension age timetable that reflected this.
The 2010 to 2015 Government made the decision to bring in changes to the State Pension age, following extensive debates in both Houses of Parliament. The 2011 Pensions Act accelerated the equalisation of women's State Pension age by 18 months and brought forward the increase in men and women's State Pension age to 66 by five and a half years, relative to the previous timetables.
Women born between 6 April 1950 and 5 April 1953 were affected by State Pension age equalisation under the Pensions Act 1995. The Pensions Act 2011 accelerated the equalisation of State Pension age, and included transitional arrangements limiting State Pension age delays, affecting women born between 6 April 1953 and 5 December 1953. It also brought forward the increase in State Pension age from 65 to 66 which affected women born between 6 December 1953 and 5 April 1960.
The Department for Work and Pensions only holds estimates at a Great Britain level. The latest estimates are that 4.84 million women in Great Britain are affected by the changes to the state pension age between 2010/11 and 2029/30 (rounded to the nearest 10,000). The figures are based on DWP calculations using the 2018-based ONS population projections. These estimates are the numbers reaching State Pension age, and are not necessarily the same as the number of new claims for State Pension.
A detailed breakdown of the overall 4.84 million figure is provided per tax year in the Table 1 below:
Table 1 – Number of women in Great Britain affected by SPA reforms between 2010/11 and 2029/30, Source: DWP calculations using ONS population projections, Rounded to the nearest 1,000
Tax Year | 2010/11 | 2011/12 | 2012/13 | 2013/14 | 2014/15 | 2015/16 | 2016/17 | 2017/18 | 2018/19 | 2019/20 |
No of women | 179,000 | 170,000 | 178,000 | 166,000 | 176,000 | 169,000 | 93,000 | 89,000 | 81,000 | 179,000 |
Tax Year | 2020/21 | 2021/22 | 2022/23 | 2023/24 | 2024/25 | 2025/26 | 2026/27 | 2027/28 | 2028/29 | 2029/30 |
No of women | 253,000 | 349,000 | 362,000 | 377,000 | 383,000 | 389,000 | 204,000 | 201,000 | 415,000 | 427,000 |
Information on the numbers affected by UK, constituent country, parliamentary constituency or local authority is not held by the Department for Work and Pensions. However, recent population projections for the UK can be found here:
Population by local area and higher local authorities can be found here:
Population projections by regional area can be found here: