Articlegreen2010

Family Ties: Women's Work and Family Histories and their Association with Incomes in Later Life in the UK

Tom Sefton · Maria Evandrou · Jane Falkingham

33 citations0/0 files storedJournal of Social Policy

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Retirement, Disability, and Employment Financial Literacy, Pension, Retirement Analysis Gender, Labor, and Family Dynamics

Abstract

Abstract This article examines the relationship between the family and work histories of older women and their personal incomes in later life, using retrospective data from the first 15 waves of the British Household Panel Survey. The association between women's family histories and their incomes later in life are relatively weak, explaining only a small proportion of the overall variation in older women's incomes. Divorce, early widowhood and re-marriage are not associated with any significant differences in older women's incomes, while motherhood is only associated with a small reduction in incomes later in life. While there are significant differences in the work histories of older women with different family histories, this translates into relatively small differences in their personal incomes, because the types of employment career pursued by most women are not associated with significantly higher retirement incomes and because public transfers dampen work history-related differentials, especially for widows. On the one hand, this could be seen as a positive finding in that the ‘pension penalty’ associated with life-course events such as motherhood and divorce is not as severe as often anticipated. On the other hand, the main reason for this is that the pension returns to working longer are relatively low, particularly for women with few qualifications. The analysis suggests that women retiring over the next two decades are unlikely to benefit significantly from the additional years they have spent in employment, because most of this increase has been in part-time employment. The article highlights the tensions between two objectives: rewarding work, and protecting the most vulnerable, such as carers, long-term disabled and unemployed. Resolving this dilemma involves moving away from a close association between pension entitlements and work history and towards universal entitlement based on a citizen's pension.

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References

2003Constraints and Choices in Mothers' Employment careers: a Consideration of Hakim's Preference Theory 2006The Gender Gap 1994Social security and social change: New challenges to the Beveridge model 2003Gender, pensions and the lifecourseHow pensions need to adapt to changing family forms 2000Women's Incomes over the Lifetime 2003Gender, pensions and the lifecourse 1999Changing patterns of pension inequality: the shift from state to private sources 2002Income in later life : work history matters

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2012UK Pension Reforms: Is Gender Still an Issue?2018Why Women Have Lower Retirement Savings: The Australian Case 2012Financial inequality and gender in older people 2020The Country That Never Retires: The Gendered Pathways to Retirement in South Korea 2015Exploring the private pension gender gap and occupation in later working life 2019Work history, economic resources, and women’s labour market withdrawal after the birth of the first grandchild

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