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Women's disadvantages on the labour market leave them financially
vulnerable when divorced. The number of elderly divorced women is
growing, but their pension prospects are poor. In Discussion Paper No.
550, research Fellow Heather Joshi and Hugh Davies outline
the UK's current arrangements for pensions and their treatment in
divorce and explain the case for new law on pension splitting. They use
econometric estimates derived from the government's Women and Employment
Survey to simulate men's and women's lifetime earnings their pension
entitlements under SERPS, Money Purchase and Final Salary Schemes, and
the consequences of pension splitting after divorce. They find that
splitting pension rights does not necessarily guarantee the provision of
adequate pensions to ex-wives. Nor does it compensate for the pension-
earning opportunities mothers forgo to rear children, for which
increasing the Basic State Pension would do better. |
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