Women bear brunt of pension changes

Women are bearing the brunt of changes to the State’s contributory pension scheme, according to internal department records.

A key commitment that was supposed to offset the impact on women who took time out of work to care for children has not been introduced because it costs too much.

The cuts to the State’s weekly contributory pension were brought in by Social Protection Minister Joan Burton to make it harder for those without a full-time, long- term working history to qualify for a maximum €230-a-week payment. It will hit more than 15,000 people next year.

The plan was implemented despite an internal department survey of 5,700 claimants highlighting the likelihood that women would be disproportionately affected by the measures introduced in April 2012. The figures showed that in the categories of pensioners where there was a majority of women the annual cuts were all in excess of €1,100. In contrast, the other two categories, which were made up of predominantly men, the annual cuts were €977 and €0.

Department records show that the impact was to be mitigated by a new homemakers credit that was approved by Ms Burton, but it was not sanctioned by the Department of Finance because of cost.

The primary reason for the inequality in the pension cuts is that women had taken time out of work to rear children, or were forced out of jobs due to the marriage bar. During their time at home they did not receive social insurance points.

This meant that the majority of women at retirement age have not got the average of 48 weeks’ contributions to qualify for the full pension. Instead, women make up more than 60% of workers in the three categories with averages of fewer than 30 weeks of service per year. This is where the bulk of the cuts fell.

Under the PRSI-contributed pension scheme, five categories of workers, based on their average weeks of work per year, were considered for reductions.

In three categories where there were more than 60% women there were cuts imposed of between €1,196 a year and €1,497 a year.

In the two other categories where there were only 36% and 16% women the cuts were €977 and €0 respectively.

The National Women’s Council of Ireland said the details released to the Irish Examiner vindicated those who argued the changes were discriminatory.

“The danger of a disproportionate impact on women was clearly signalled by the NWCI and others in advance of the introduction of the changes to the contributory state pension scheme in April 2012. The department were aware of this concern. However, they still introduced the changes,” it said.

A statement by the Department said figures from the CSO sugg-ested that, overall, older women were less likely to live in poverty and got better value for money from the social insurance fund.

“The recently published actuarial review of the social insurance fund confirms that the fund provides better value to female rather than male contributors.

“It further confirms that those with lower earnings and those with shorter contribution histories, mostly women, have and will continue to obtain the best value for money from the fund,” it said.