Women's pension entitlement in the UK: Understanding who may have been left under-provisioned by recent changes in the state pension age, intends to f

According to the 1995&2011 Pension Acts, the women's state pension age (SPA) has increased from 60 to 66 faster than anticipated to face the cost implication of an increase in life expectancy. However, the rising SPA without appropriate notification has made it difficult for people to change their working schedule or pension plan, especially those born in the 1950s. The opportunity that additional notice would have given them to adjust their retirement plans has been lost due to the mismanagement within the Department of Works and Pensions (DWP). They may struggle to enter the labour market to compensate for their savings (Scutt, 2023). The data from PPI (2011) shows that only 65% of women born in the 1950s still actively participate in economic activity, which claims that they may need ten years or more to respond to the change in SPA. The Ombudsman believed that women should have had at least 28 months' more individual notice of the changes than they got, while they only got 16 months to suit this new policy decision (Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman, 2023). The number of women born in the 1950s affected by State Pension Age (SPA) changes is over 1.5 million (Thurley and Keen,2018).