Feminism - Gender Pension Gap Flashcards
What are all the reasons for gender pension gap
Women earn less in their working lives
Women have a greater burden of work
In many countries older women, when they were younger didn’t have equal opportunity in education than men
Women have greater risk of earlier exclusion from the labour market
Women have to interrupt their working lives more often
Divorces could leave women with insufficient pension
Women live longer than men
Why is women earning less in their working lives causing a gender pension gap
Gender Pension Gap (article)
Why this gap?
• Women earn less during their working lives. Despite anti-discrimination laws the majority women still earn substantially less than men and, as a direct result of this, their pension contributions and benefits are also substantially lower. In some Member States those people earning below a certain level do not make contributions to the state pension scheme and t also do not earn the benefits.
Why is women having a greater burden of work causing a gender pension gap
Women have a greater burden of work: as a rule women, in addition possibly to paid work, also do unpaid work in the family. In order to do this, many women work part-time which decreases their pension levels.
Why is older women not having had educational access causing a gender pension gap
• In many countries, the current generation of older women did not have the same access to education and professional training as the men of their generation, and for that reason they have had less access to qualified and well-paid positions
LINK TO WEBERIAN THEORY
Why is women having greater risk of earlier exclusion from the labour market causing a gender pension gap
Women have a greater risk of earlier exclusion from the labour market: in fact women in the course of their working lives still run an above-average risk of becoming unemployed, and in most European countries are under greater threat of being affected by early retirement.
Why is women having to interrupt their work lives more often causing a gender pension gap
Women had to interrupt their working lives more often. A large number of women give up paid employment to care for older members of their families or children. Once again, their pension contributions and benefits are reduced as a result. This also affects male careers and may be one reason why men are less likely to take on this role.
Why is women living longer than men causing a gender pension gap
• The fact that women live longer than men on average is sometimes used as an actuarial argument for pension schemes to pay out lower benefits to women, discriminating against individual Women.
The male breadwinner model
• The male breadwinner model is still dominant
Pension schemes are still constructed upon a traditional nuclear family with a male breadwinner and a non-employed wife, which leaves many women without individual pension rights.
The patterns of women’s work impact on their rights
• Women are workers too - the patterns of women’s work impact on their rights throughout their lives
Pension schemes are socially determined by men to suit male patterns of employment that have not been applicable to the majority of older women today. Changing family patterns, an the increase in divorce rates, must be taken into account in the reform of pension systems. The issues of sharing pension entitlement and derived rights become very important.
Women carry out majority of care and unpaid work
• Women continue to carry out the majority of care and unpaid work
Women still have (and have had different life patterns than those of men. In particular, women have been responsible - and still are in older age - for the provision of care to their families, partners, friends and neighbours, a task that does not give any pension rights.
Feminisation of poverty
• Feminisation of poverty as women age Older women rely more on state pensions, and are consequently more vulnerable to governments’ tendency to expenditure cut back in public pensions, replacing them with some kind of private provision. Only recently, austerity measures, which have been introduced throughout Europe as result of the financial crisis, disproportionally affect women, undermine years of progress towards women’s integration in the labour market and stall gender equality.
