Labour MP, Vera Bird, backing the Fawsett Society and Age Concerns campaign "Make Pensions Work for Women", has said that radical changes in the law are required to protect women in retirement to avoid the poverty trap.
The campaign has a six point plan to protect women with key points such as ensuring equal pay for part timers (which affects state pensions), amending the lower earnings limit (this again affects basic state and state second pension entitlement as well as making women more aware of pensions and their need to plan for themselves.
Our view
An admirable call - but you can only "take a horse to water - you cannot force them to drink it".
The availability of information for anyone, including women, is available from Government and Benefits Agency Offices, The Post Office, Banks, Insurance Companies, Financial Advisers, Citizens Advice, Information Groups, Charities (e.g. Age Concern, Help the Aged), Radio, TV, The Internet and Newspapers, Magazines, Books and more.
There are facilities for women who look after children to get credit for state pensions automatically, there are now good, solid, pensions on divorce laws and very active back to work schemes for women.
We are not sure what more the state can do - at some point people have to take responsibility and suffer the consequences for their own actions (or lack of action).
The fact remains that most people are generally not that interested until it is too late! This means that for the vast majority of us it is already too late.
The people we should be educating are our children! Making sure that it is not too late for them.
Visit the Pensions Adviser.com to access the State Pensions Centre and Pensions for Women and Making Your Child a Pensions Millionaire.