Private pensions drive discriminates against women, warns report

ELDERLY women will continue to be at the greatest risk of poverty if the Government prioritises private pensions.

This is according to a National Women’s Council of Ireland report on institutional gender discrimination in the area of pensions, which will be published today.

The report, Pensions, What Women Want, says if the Government relies on private pensions with tax-based incentives, it will further marginalise vulnerable women.

This is because women do not have equal access to the high-paid jobs, often have interrupted employment histories because of family responsibilities and many suffer from the lingering affects of the marriage-bar which, prior to 1973, banned women from working after they were married.

“[The NWCI] does not promote tax-supported voluntary savings and argues there are regressive anti-poverty and gender equality outcomes from all private pension saving schemes. They immediately favour only those who can afford to save. That is those who are in relatively secure and well-paid employment,” it said.

The council will launch its report this morning in Dublin’s Davenport Hotel.

It was commissioned in response to the Green Paper on pensions which was published last year.

The women’s council said the Government had a responsibility to ensure elderly women were guaranteed an income they could live off, not disadvantaged because of time spent caring for their families.

The report proposes reforms to the Pay Related Social Insurance system to eliminate deep-rooted gender discrimination, such as reducing the number of consecutive weeks workers have to buildup before earning standard pension entitlements.

It also wants a representative of the women’s lobby to be included on the Pensions Board and for a shift in the Government’s policy back towards social insurance as the solution to the pension’s shortfall.

However, the council’s report did not focus solely on government action and called on women’s groups to take up the issue.

“It is crucial that the Irish women’s movement, as an actor in the pension policy community, responds to the challenge of the engaging in the pension debate. Pressure for pension reform has been significant. However, there has been little gendering of the pension debate.

“Debate is instead stakeholder driven and like other elite driven privatisation policy processes is largely dominated by the representatives of private industry, in this case the pension’s industry,” it said.

As a matter of priority, it wants the Government to provide a mechanism for listening to women’s voices before it introduces any lasting changes in the system of state pensions.