Superannuating the Second Sex: Law, Privatisation and Retirement Income

The privatisation of retirement income through state encouragement of occupational and retail funds affects men and women differently. This is largely because the legal forms adopted in the course of privatisation suppose a 40-year continuous working life, which is mostly a male experience. Although women with different backgrounds of class and race have a variety of employment patterns, on average women spend approximately half the years in the workforce that men do and are paid considerably less. Time-use statistics indicate this is because women are engaged in household production from which retirement income under privatised schemes does not accrue. The result is that low wages are replicated in inadequate retirement incomes, and many women live in poverty in retirement. Arguments from desert, social justice and a vision of citizenship in retirement are made to justify changes to current retirement income policy and its privatising legal forms.