State pension overhaul declared 'unfair' as Britons face 'less adequate' retirement

Thank you for subscribing!

The state pension age is gradually rising, meaning millions have to wait longer for the retirement benefit

Recent and future changes to the state pension have been declared "unfair" by a majority of older Britons, according to damning new polling.

Nearly three in five people between the ages of 60 and 65 regard their own state pension age as "unfair", new findings from the Standard Life Centre for the Future of Retirement reveal.

The research captures the mood of the first group of workers directly hit by the phased increase in the State Pension age from 66 to 67, which is being rolled out between 2026 and 2028.

Questions persist over whether every demographic group is equally positioned to extend their working lives or rely on private savings to bridge the gap created by later access to the state pension.

Around six in ten women in their 60s view their state pension age as "unfair", compared with just 43 per cent of men in the same bracket.

Half of women in this age group report feeling under pressure because of the rise to 67, a figure that drops to less than a third among men.

The disparity reflects a well-documented savings shortfall: the gender pensions gap for those aged 55 to 59 currently stands at 48 per cent, meaning women are far less likely than men to have built up sufficient retirement funds.

Catherine Foot, director of the Standard Life Centre for the Future of Retirement, said: "This is particularly true for women, who are significantly less likely than men to have adequate private retirement savings."

She added that any future increases must account for "those with lower savings and fewer options to extend their working lives".

Nearly seven in ten people aged 60 to 65 believe the threshold should stay where it is regardless of any gains in life expectancy, with fewer than a quarter backing rises tied to how long people live.

Women are slightly more resistant at 71 per cent, though a clear majority of men, 62 per cent, share the same view.

Two-thirds of people in their sixties also consider it fundamentally unfair to shift the goalposts after someone has already begun their career, with only 24 per cent accepting the Government's right to raise the age to shield taxpayers from the cost of longer lives.

Ms Foot added: "As our population ages, the country is faced with fiscal challenges that involve difficult trade-offs. The state pension is often central to these debates, but our research shows how strongly people feel about changes to the state pension age."

Current legislation places the next increase, from 67 to 68, between 2044 and 2046, affecting those born from April 1977 to April 1978.

Yet reports indicate that Treasury officials have signalled to the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) that the Government's working assumption is to bring this forward by at least seven years, to 2037-2039, a shift that could affect millions of additional workers.

Earlier Standard Life research found that just 51 per cent of UK adults aged 18 to 65 believed the state pension would still be universally available when they reached eligibility.