Jay Ginn

Financial welfare in later life is of prime concern as the funding of pensions and care rises up policy agendas. In this context, work and family histories are well known to impact on late-life income, generally reducing state and private pensions for women. In a political context where benefits are under threat as part of the retrenchment of the w...

Across Europe and North America, governments responded to the financial crisis of 2007-8 by taking on the debt of banks and insurance companies. Subsequent austerity programmes to reduce that debt have cut the living standards of all but the richest. Yet governments insist cuts are necessary and that they are fairly distributed. In this review of a...

The UK Pensions Commission confirmed that women's domestic roles are crucial to their pension disadvantage. As a result, measures enacted in the Pensions Acts of 2007 and 2008 aimed to make state pensions more inclusive for those with periods out of the labour market for family caring, as well as encouraging more saving through private pensions by...

In this brief response to the proposal for temporary exit from employment, I question whether funding career breaks through state pension sacrifice is the best way to achieve the aim of allowing individuals more autonomy, choice and flexibility in their life course. I argue that this funding mechanism is socially-divisive, reinforcing the disadvant...

Sociology almost entirely neglects later life. This contrasts with social policy where elderly people are largely seen as a burden on society and their carers. The article examines three areas of sociological enquiry and suggests reasons for the omission of elderly people. Parallels are drawn with sociology's earlier neglect of women. The feminist...

Men have hitherto largely been invisible in research on informal care. This paper examines gender differences in informal caring, focusing on gender differences according to the relationship between the carer and care-recipient and the location of caring. The paper uses secondary analysis of the 1990–91 General Household Survey, which identified ov...

The paper outlines in short the development of old age security systems in the United Kingdom and Germany and shows the current state of the socio-economic status of the elderly. We start with a brief and only the basic conception characterizing description of the old age security systems, followed by a presentation of the political discussion and...

The paper outlines in short the development of old age security systems in the United Kingdom and Germany and shows the current state of the socio-economic status of the elderly. We start with a brief and only the basic conception characterizing description of the old age security systems, followed by a presentation of the political discussion and...

Policy makers aim to raise the retirement age for economic reasons. For individuals, longer employment maintains income and social contacts. However, retirement allows more time for socially integrating activities with family and friends. There is therefore tension for midlife individuals between the perceived advantages of employment and retiremen...

According to the Pensions Commission in its first report, the state pension system in Britain is among the least generous in the developed world. This reflects the explicit aim of both Conservative and New Labour governments since 1980 to reduce the share of pensions provided by the state and increase that provided by the private sector. This polic...

Population ageing has intensified the need to maximise employment rates among those aged 50-69, yet the perspective of midlife men and women themselves concerning employment and retirement, and how these may shift in response to policy trends, is little understood. The research analyses attitudes to employment among British midlife men and women, f...

Debate on pension privatisation in Europe has provided useful insights into the diversity of European pension systems in terms of ideological orientation, design features and reform paths followed. However, the gender dimension has often been neglected. Thus a recent analysis states that, depending on predominant social values, pension privatisatio...

As transitional welfare states grapple with an ageing population and a diminishing tax base, achieving later exit from the labour market is even more urgent than in other developed economies. Reforms to pre-existing Bismarckian pension systems are in process but job opportunities for midlife workers are limited. These trends may affect midlife men...

Research on the balance of welfare provision between state and market has in the past ignored gender, and more recent feminist analysis has barely explored how changing gender roles over time interact with shifts in pension policy. The loosening link between marriage and motherhood poses questions for pension systems still largely based on the male...

Present policy means that a private pension, unless it is substantial, may fail to bring financial gain in retirement due to means testing: the pensions poverty trap. This paper examines women's acquisition of private (occupational and personal) pensions and their risk of facing this trap. Because of the loosening link between marriage and motherho...

British women's increasing levels of educational attainment have led to expectations of gender convergence in employment patterns and hence in lifetime earnings and pension income. However, it is not clear how far losses due to motherhood vary with educational qualifications. A polarisation in mothers' employment is evident, according to whether wo...

Rising divorce rates and residualisation of the basic pension make it urgent to ask whether divorced women of working age can build an adequate private pension for their retirement. Recent legislation permitting pension sharing represents a welcome recognition of these difficulties, although whether it in fact alleviates them will depend on how the...

Minority ethnic groups have low income in later life from private pensions, partly due to shorter employment records in Britain since migration. Yet disadvantage and discrimination in the labour market, as well as differences in cultural norms concerning women's employment, may lead to persistence of ethnic variation in private pension acquisition....

Minority ethnic groups have low income in later life from private pensions, partly due to shorter employment records in Britain since migration. Yet disadvantage and discrimination in the labour market, as well as differences in cultural norms concerning women's employment, may lead to persistence of ethnic variation in private pension acquisition....

Considers the way in which UK and American pension schemes are structured for women’s poverty and social exclusion in later life. Analyses recent trends in women’s employment and the impacts on current pension structures. Looks at the impact of different pension schemes and goes on to cover the effect on different classes and ethnicities. States th...

Analysis of data on British midlife adults indicated that being out of the work force between age 50 and state pension age has a different impact on participation in physical activity according to class and gender. Highest levels of inactivity are found among the unemployed working class and relate to low levels of education, poor health, and negat...

Pension reform in Western societies has sought to shift the balance of provision towards the private sector. In Britain, the 1986 Social Security Act marked a watershed in privatisation by promoting personal pensions while cutting the value of the State Earnings Related Pension Scheme. The article assesses the effects of the Act, especially the...

Most care of older, ailing or disabled people within the home is carried out by a spouse. This paper examines late life marriage and the gendered consequences of caring for older married people in England. Qualitative interview data are analysed to contrast the sense of autonomy of older men and women while caring for a spouse and after widowhood....

Pensions policy is of particular relevance to women. Women can expect to live five years longer than men, but generally on a much lower income. Older women are over twice as likely as men to live in poverty. Yet policy-makers over the past 20 years have neither addressed the concentration of poverty among older women nor taken seriously the gender...

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In this article, organized into three parts, author Jay Ginn examines existing gender inequality of pension income and the likely impact of state welfare retrenchment on older women in the future. Gender inequality of pension income in European countries is first reviewed briefly. Then, the sources of cross-country variation in older women’s pensio...

The paper aims to contribute to an understanding of how stress from the combined responsibilities of home and employment varies according to the family circumstances and employment characteristics of women and men. For women, family responsibilities are associated with shorter hours of employment and lower occupational achievement, whereas for men,...

The highlighting of ‘carers’ as a social group sharing a common problem and a common interest was born out of feminist writing on the domestic labour of women. Caring for elderly people and other dependants was seen as an instance of unpaid work. Because of this, the dominant concern of the literature on care-giving has been the burden faced by wom...

"Only connect" - gender relations and ageing ageing, gender and sociological theory theorizing age and gender relations conformity and resistance as women age gendered work, gendered retirement choice and constraint in the retirement of older married women the married lives of older people "I'm the eyes and she's the arms" - changes in gender roles...

Gender inequality of income in later life is linked to earlier employment through the major role of occupational and personal pensions. In addition to women's lower earnings, their diverse patterns of employment, in terms of the timing of periods of full-time, part-time and non-employment, may affect non-state pension income. In this paper, work hi...

Les AA. s'efforcent de repondre aux affirmations de C. Hakim selon lesquelles la sociologie feministe en repliquant aux analyses patriarcales a cree de nouveaux mythes concernant l'emploi des femmes et s'est ecartee de l'evidence. Ils estiment que ces theses sont provocantes. Ils presentent une refutation de chacune d'entre elles. Ils affirment que...

British research on exit from the labour market has been mainly concerned with men, but US research shows retirement for women is equally salient. Gender differences in attitudes to employment and reasons for early exit are relevant to employment and pension policy. In this paper, we use data from the Social Change and Economic Life Initiative surv...

This paper analyses the circumstances under which providing informal care has an adverse impact on paid employment, using data from the 1990 General Household Survey which identified 2,700 informal carers. The relationship between informal caring and employment participation is complex and differs by gender and marital status. Paid employment is lo...

Malgre une egalite formelle des sexes en matiere de chances d'acceder aux memes emplois sur le marche du travail qui a stimule l'entree en masse des femmes dans la vie active, l'egalite des salaires demeure un voeu pieux. L'A. va etudier les facteurs de determination du niveau du salaire. Il montre que l'egalite est plus importante dans le secteur...

Women's labour force participation rate declines steeply in the 15 years preceding their state pensionable age, in spite of their generally lacking childcare responsibilities during this stage of the life course. Employment of women in the years following childrearing is important in enabling women to obtain a significant improvement in their pensi...

c1 Sara Arber, Department of Sociology, University of Surrey, Guildford, Surrey GU2 5XH, UK.

Data from the General Household Surveys of 1988-1990 was analyzed to examine how the employment and pension plan membership of British midlife women was related to the presence, employment status, and earnings of their adult children, while controlling for other relevant factors. Information was available on over 9,000 women aged between 40 and 59,...

One consequence of the ageing of populations is the portrayal of elderly people as threatening the viability of welfare states; in particu lar, those who wish to justify cuts in public pensions depict the elderly as increasingly affluent and powerful relative to the rest of society. This article challenges such a view of elderly people in Britain a...

Research on gender inequality in employment has focused mainly on women's lower rates of pay, neglecting the less visible inequalities in occupational welfare such as fringe benefits. This paper examines gender differences in access to one centrally important occupational benefit an occupational pension. We analyse the 1987 General Household Survey...

Little research attention has been given to examining inequalities in the health of elderly women and men, in spite of their high use of health services and the importance of health to maintaining independence in later life. This paper uses data from the British General Household Survey to analyse the variation in health of elderly women and men by...

The treatment of women as family dependants by state social systems in industrialized societies has become increasingly problematrc due to trends over the last 50 years such as the rise in cohabitation, divorce and lone parenthood and women's increased participation in the paid labour force.

Class differences in the provision of informal care have received little research attention. Since class gradients in ill-health and life expectancy are strong, differences in need for informal care are to be expected between classes. We use data from the 1985 General Household Survey to examine the prevalence and location of informal care-giving a...

In sociology, research on the family and the distribution of labour and resources within the household has tended to ignore elderly people, focusing on younger people’s changing patterns of employment and domestic work. Feminist sociologists, who might have recognised a parallel between the long neglect of gender and the current invisibility of eld...

Debate about elderly people has been dominated by stereotypical images, while profound inequalities in the circumstances of elderly people have been neglected. This paper examines one aspect of inequality, that of personal income, showing that elderly people span the gulf between affluence and poverty, and that ageist representations of pensioners...

‘Caring’ and ‘carers’ are words in frequent use in social policy, but their meaning is often vague and undefined, encompassing a wide range of activities and relationships. This paper discusses the meaning of caring and focuses particular attention on older carers. Secondary analysis of the 1985 Office of Population, Censuses and Surveys (OPCS) Inf...

The paper outlines in short the development of old age security systems in the United Kingdom and Germany and shows the current state of the socio-economic status of the elderly. We start with a brief and only the basic conception characterizing description of the old age security systems, followed by a presentation of the political discussion and...

Introduction The state pension age (SPA) for women is already set to equalize with men's at 65 by 2020. Women have had some time to hear about and adjust to this change and to the rises after 2020 that will affect men equally. But the proposal to accelerate the rise so that women's SPA will be 65 by 2018 and 66 by 2020 means that women in their lat...