The Government is set to conduct an independent state pension age review in the next 18 months. A think tank has argued the Government must seek to level-up healthy life expectancy ahead of legislating to increase the state pension age to 68.
The state pension age is currently 66 in the UK for both men and women, however it is set to rise in the coming years.
In 2028, the state pension age will increase to 67, and it is on course to go up again to 68 before 2050.
However, due to a recent fall in life expectancy in the UK, there have been calls for this to be reviewed and the state pension age to be reduced, rather than increased.
Average life expectancy in England fell by 7.8 weeks between 2018 and 2020, and in Scotland it fell by 11 weeks, according to data from the Office for National Statistics.
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David Sinclair, Director of ILC, commented on the issue of state pension age increases.
He said: “COVID-19 has likely had an impact on life expectancy and certainly had an impact on the employment rates of older workers.
“It also highlighted the huge disparities in how long we live and how healthy we are. Too many people are being forced out of work before the state pension kicks in.
“The Government has set itself an ambitious target of tackling inequalities in life expectancy, but there hasn’t been an adequate plan to realise this goal.
One particular group affected by state pension age changes has been women born in the 1950s, who saw their retirement age go from 60 to 65, and later up to 66 in line with men.
The prominent campaign group Women Against State Pension Inequality (WASPI) has fought on behalf of women who feel they were mistreated by the state changes which were brought in with the 1995 State Pension Act.
WASPI has argued that millions of women were not given enough notice of the state pension age changes, despite recommendations made to the Government, which advised women should be given up to 15 years’ notice. They say women were not personally or appropriately notified when the changes were first brought in.
As a result, some women have unexpectedly been made to wait much longer to receive their state pension than other women of a similar age, with a one-year age difference on some occasions meaning an extra three-years of waiting to retire.
A DWP spokesperson said: “The Government decided over 25 years ago that it was going to make the state pension age the same for men and women as a long-overdue move towards gender equality. Raising State Pension age in line with life expectancy changes has been the policy of successive administrations over many years.”
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