Woman's Hour - Money - why women need to talk about money

Episode Date: August 8, 2019

Woman’s Hour talks about money. Over their lives, women earn less and save less than men – and, very often, find they need more of it. Research consistently suggests that women are less likely to talk about personal finances or to seek financial advice, but far more likely to worry about it than men. We look at how we manage our relationship with money and, at what our relationships can do to our cash-flow. And, we ask what part the government, work places and financial intuitions can play in building our financial resilience and reducing gender inequality. From student debt to pensions; buying a home to saving for a pension; the costs of paying for care or doing the caring – and, the gender pay gap - we examine where things go wrong and, how we might begin to fix them.Presenter: Jenni Murray Producer: Ruth Watts Interviewed guest: Fran Bennett Interviewed guest: Amy Cashman Interviewed guest: Jude Kelly Interviewed guest: Sarah Pennells Interviewed guest: Lucy Tobin

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BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hello, Jenny Murray welcoming you to the Woman's Hour podcast for Thursday the 8th of August. Today we're talking about the subject very few of us are prepared to talk about, money. Why are so many women scared of the one subject that, if we took it seriously and in good time, would make us financially independent and not living in fear of a poverty-stricken old age? How do we avoid losing money if we have children or a relationship comes to a close? Why do so many of us manage the family budget but don't take control of the finances as a whole? And then pensions how can you

get the best deal to enjoy a comfortable retirement well with me are amy cashman one of the chief executives of kantar's insights division lucy tobin who covers the city for the evening standard and is the author of being an adult fran b Bennett, a member of the Women's Budget Group and academic in Oxford University's Department of Social Policy and Intervention. She's in Oxford. Sarah Pennells, a personal finance journalist and founder of SavvyWomen.co.uk.

And Jude Kelly, the founder of the Women of the World Festival, who's involved in the Ensuring Women's Futures programme, and they're here in the studio. There's been a long struggle, we know, for gender equality, but to what extent has the feminist movement failed to address this question of hard cash? Why are we frightened of discussing money? Jude has identified finance as a feminist issue. Why? So as part of my work with Enjoying Women's Futures, we put on a number of events at WOW

festivals in London and around the country. And we just titled them Come and Talk About Money. We thought that people were going to be asking technical questions, which to a certain extent they were, but actually the sessions were hugely emotional about women's fear, about women's insecurity, about women's shame around money, and also all kinds of acknowledgements between women about how they didn't have the feeling of the right to talk to their partners about money, and if they did, it caused family issues, even with very loving relationships, because the power dynamic was somehow unsettled, that they were worried that they were then modelling bad behaviour for their children because they felt so kind of incompetent.

And we began to join the dots about money along with the way that we have about violence and the way that we have about all kinds of systemic injustices, which is that traditionally women haven't been really allowed to own things. They are parts of property. They're perceived as that. I mean, even Barbara Castle in 1970 couldn't sign her own checkbook. So it's a historic reason why we feel we're excluded from it, but we have to change.

Now, you have had massively big jobs with massive big budgets. How scared have you been to pay attention to your own budget? I think that I'm a very typical person because when I see a cause, a reason to save money or make money on behalf of an organisation that I believe in, then I'll go gung-ho. But for my own sake, as an older woman, I have been really lax. I've looked after the children in a traditional sort of way. But you know, I really haven't thought properly about pensions. I haven't thought properly about savings. And I haven't realised the impact that could have on not just my security in old age, but then, you know, other women like me,

I'm in theory, standing up for other women. But this is a deficit in my own confidence. And that's part of the reason why I'm on this crusade. Fran, in Oxford, the Women's Budget Group has set up a commission on a gender equal economy. How will it tackle this question of women's relative lack of financial resources and ability to sort it out? Yes, I think building on what Judy said, I think it's important to think about this, not just in terms of individual women's ability to cope with finances. I mean, after all, the women's movement wanted legal

and financial independence for women as one of its very first demands. So it's not that that hasn't been looked at. But I think the Women's Budget Group in particular would be wanting to talk about this as a public policy issue, and not just as an issue that women have to sort out as individuals themselves. I mean, it's perfectly true that, for example, savings and assets are becoming more individualised. It's also true that financial protection is becoming more individualised. But I think the Women's Budget Group would want to say, well, we want to think together as women as well about how we might want to change public provision, both in terms of employment policy and in terms of social security and taxation policy,

so that we're not just leaving women alone to navigate this landscape, if you like. We're actually changing the landscape for them and working with them to do that so that it isn't just an individualised pursuit. Sarah, we know that 90% of financial advisors are men. How much of a problem is that for women? I think it is a problem. And it's not just because women are maybe more inclined to talk to another woman about their finances. And partly for the reasons that Jude says.

It's hard to make generalisations, but certainly a lot of the women that I talk to and I hear from, do think about money differently. Now, we may arrive at the same outcome, which is we may decide to start a pension or invest some money, but the journey to get there is different. And I hear some real horror stories still of financial advisors, male financial advisors, if they see a couple talking to the man or saying that the man needs to take out life insurance but not to worry about the woman and this is 2019 and I think there are two things one is that a lot of men I think still think about the man as being the breadwinner and women sort of earning pin money or nice to have money and don't look at actually how women think about money. And the other thing is as well, I think it's that if you don't think that the industry

is relevant to you, if you feel like it's a bit of a club by men for men, then I think it's something you're less inclined to engage with. Julian, I know you speak often to people in the financial industry, campaigners, policymakers. How concerned generally, how much concern comes back to you that women's interests are often neglected? I think it's just beginning. I think all of this information that's coming forward through research and some brilliant research, I mean, the different reports that are coming forward,

I think the industries are realising they're not connecting with women. I mean, we've just launched, a friend of mine, Olga Miller and I, have launched a thing called SmartPurse, which is specifically a financial toolkit for women, a sort of cross between Fitbit and Weight Watchers, because we think that women don't want to meet financial advisors

to go straight into talking about product, not at all. They want to get to grips to go straight into talking about product. Not at all. They want to get to grips with their own emotional feelings about money and themselves in relationship to money and then make some choices based on a kind of pathway that they choose. I don't think the industry knows how to do that yet. I think it's going to be women creating it by women for women and that's where we've got to go.

Sarah, how comfortable are the women you come in contact with to discuss how they manage their money and how much they've got? Sarah? Well, the women I talk to, I mean, they are coming onto a money website, so you could say, you know, obviously they're selecting that. They are actually very comfortable talking about it, but mainly with other women. And, I mean, I run events as well as having the website,

and we don't have only female speakers, but we have a lot of female speakers. And the audience is not surprisingly many women. And the feedback I get consistently is one of the things they like about it is the fact that they feel they can ask, in inverted commas, stupid questions. I mean, they're not stupid questions at all. But there's that real feeling that they don't really want to engage as judith said they don't want to necessarily talk to a financial advisor because they're worried about feeling stupid or being sold to actually they are very comfortable talking about money and they want to know about it because it makes a massive difference not only to what you can do today but certainly what you

can do in the years to come and and fran and i know a lot of your work focuses on women with much lower incomes. What are their experiences of discussing money? Let's say they're applying for benefits. Well, yes, I've done a lot of research with low to moderate income couples, so women and men. I think one of the most important things is that, I mean, women are often in charge of the day-to-day management of the household budget in low-income families with children in particular.

And that also means that the cost of managing that budget and making the, the kinds of financial instruments that such women may be involved with are things like, you know, doorstep lending and things like rent to own and things like catalogs. And they tend to be involved with the financial, the high cost end of the financial market and also the end which you know depends on personal relationships so the women are not just for example the people who tend to be the ones who take out the doorstep loans but also the women in the workforce for doorstep lending and things like that now that is actually going down in in terms of numbers but I think the important thing, which in a way seems to be a constant throughout the income scale, is the personal relationships. So the Financial Services Authority, for example, did a survey where women were much more likely to be loyal to a particular financial product or institution. They like to know the financial institution.

They like to do things face-to-face. They didn't just shop around. So I think that is important. I mean, we need to be a bit careful about not generalising because these are majority issues rather than absolutely everybody. But I think it does tend to suggest that women have a different relationship with how they deal with money. Well, we're all familiar, familiar of course with the fact that

there is still a gender pay gap and last year the Office for National Statistics set it at 17.9% but not all of the women who are counted in the statistics work full-time and often the jobs they can get are low paid and that's often because of gender. So how much is the danger for a woman of falling into poverty the result of having children who need to be looked after or of having been dependent on a relationship which then ends? How aware are women of the financial risks they face compared with men and what can they do to protect themselves? Jude, which financial risks struck you most forcibly in your Insuring Women's Futures programme? Well, clearly pensions, something that women find, again, well, most people sort of think, oh, boring. But one of the things that became really clear was that in a household, in a conventional household,

the man will often start investing in pension very early, be interested in the pension. The woman will often say, well, look, I'll just deal with the childminding, I'll pay for the household stuff. So they divide the investment up in that way. One is ephemeral and one is permanent. When the woman takes leave and comes back on part-time work, if she comes back, her pension keeps dropping.

Standard time to divorce as a couple is around about 47. She might get a house if they have the house, but then they'll split it. He'll still have the pension and it will keep rising. And then, you know, for a number of reasons, by the time she gets into her 60s, when she's probably still caring for both her children and her parents, she will find that she is five times poorer than her male equivalent.

And that's of any educational background. And that is such a shock. Fran, what role does the state play in protecting women against what might be argued a pretty predictable problem? Well, one of the problems recently has been that, of course, we've had a series of benefit cuts. And the House of Commons library work shows that that has particularly hit women in fact 86 percent of the cost of the changes in taxation and benefits recently

has actually come out of women's pockets now that doesn't necessarily mean to say that's all affecting women because of course women are also the conduits for benefits for other people, in particular children. But if you actually look at, if you like, what's coming out of women's purses, that's very much been the effect of the last few years. And I think the other thing that's a more longer term trend in the social protection benefits, if you like. We don't need something extra for the main claimant for the person who's dependent on them. But because we've done that, some women have been left not necessarily catered for. You have to red circle those women, if you like, if you're going to move towards independence and make sure that you're not taking for granted an independence that

doesn't necessarily exist. Lucy, what about young women? How have increases in student debt affected their ability to control their finances? I think it's mainly a mentality problem because the changes to student finance actually mean that even though people are graduating with £50,000 debt, most won't pay it off and it comes out of your salary. So it shouldn't affect, you know, your long-term financial planning, but obviously it does. You know, you've got this large figure looming in your mind. And on top of that, we've got all, you know, the well-known problems with the housing market with high rent especially in the cities where the jobs are when you've got all these priorities kind of really urgent priorities you need to pay your rent you're trying to save for a house and you've got some money coming out

also from your student debts you're not really going to think well hang on a sec I've definitely got capacity here to think about the future and saving for a pension. The other thing is the last 10 years, interest rates have been at a record low. So those who have been lucky enough to have some money to put away, women are less confident at investing, more likely to put that in a savings account, which is safe, your money's not going to go anywhere, but it's also not going to grow. So once again, another hurdle and women are missing out. Amy, I know your research suggests women are not actively addressed by banks. Why are banks not chasing women to sell products to them? Well, I think some of it is the historic things that we've talked about already, that the man has traditionally been seen as the breadwinner and so the primary person for those kind of institutions to go after. But I think if I'm honest as well, that a lot of it is to do with the way those

financial institutions are made up. We talked already about IFAs being 90% male. A lot of the people in financial services institutions creating products, creating communications, creating marketing strategies are men. And I think, you know, you need a different lens sometimes because there's some very different reasons why women engage with financial services than men do. And you need to understand those. What are those? What essentially do the banks need to know? Sure. Well, I mean, the first thing is that women's context is completely different to men. So when it comes to financial services, women think about other people much more. So they're thinking about the family. And this has already come out in the discussion already.

Men think much more about themselves and much more about their own personal financial position. And that manifests itself in the fact that men tend to be better invested in the long term because they've thought about that. The second thing as well we've talked about is that women are less confident than men generally in financial services. And then when you couple that with the fact that the category itself doesn't engage anybody very well, particularly, and the fact that it feels more like a man's world, you kind of get into a vicious circle where you're less confident. So you don't want to engage. They're not trying to engage you. It all becomes a bit of a vicious circle. Jude, what would you say is the real problem here? Are women just financially illiterate or are there real structural problems?

No, I think it's absolutely about the relationship of power. It's one of the things that relates to so many of the conversations we have about what gender injustice looks like. And by the way, if we put together not just equal pay, what's not equal pay, but what's not equal pensions, the statistics would be much bigger. Being rich, being powerful, being in charge, those are things that are usually negative in the way that people look at women.

The dynamic between men and women has always been that the man is the breadwinner and the protector. And that has landed a lot in the idea that finally he's protecting by providing the money. And I think a lot of women still feel personally coerced into that psychological relationship and sometimes actually coerced. So I think it's a lot to do with us feeling as if we haven't got our hands on the levers of power and maybe we shouldn't have and maybe it's not even a nice thing to have. But, you know, we've got to change that. I'm not blaming women. But what I'm saying is that historically we've been encouraged not to feel that money is our business and it's got to be our business.

Sarah, briefly. Just a couple of points. When I started my website, which was 10 years ago, investment companies were telling me women are not our customers. You know, we are not. We want to change that. It was a full stop. We don't we don't see women as our customers. The other thing is I would take issue with the women are not confident about investing. I think actually women are. We're more risk aware rather than necessarily risk averse. The trouble is, I think the way the industry has historically talked about investing in risk,

it's kind of like, if I don't understand what you're telling me, why should I trust you with my money? I don't think it's a confidence issue. I think it's language as much as anything. Fran, just one other question to you briefly. I know the new Women's Minister, Amber Rudd, has said that she wants to prioritise women's economic empowerment. What do you suppose she means by that?

Yes, I think that's very important, actually, and I hope that she will be applying that even more to ideas about universal credit than she has done so far. I mean, she's also a women and equalities minister now as well, of course, so that also gives her an extra opportunity to pursue that. I think she needs to look very carefully at universal credit in particular, because I think when she says women's economic independence, she's particularly thinking about two things. One is protecting women from particularly financial coercion that we just heard about. And the other is women's

economic independence through earnings. Now, the first of those she's trying to solve within universal credit, which is the new means tested benefit, bringing six means tested benefits and tax credits together. She's trying to solve that within universal credit by directing the money to the main carer within families with children. But of course, that doesn't really solve the whole problem. And what the Women's Budget Group and others have been calling for is that there shouldn't be just one single payment of universal credit, which largely there is at the moment for couples, but there should be part of universal credit paid to each partner within the couple. And you would have thought with the kind of thing that people have been saying in this programme to date

that that would be the least that we could ask for. And the second thing is that by women's economic independence, she particularly means earnings. And the problem with Universal Credit is that for many so-called second earners in couples, which is often the woman going back to employment after maternity leave, of course, universal credit tends not to provide the kinds of incentives positively that tax credits used to do. It does improve incentives for lots of people, but not necessarily for second earners. And for lone parents, it may actually make it easier for them to work fewer hours rather than more hours. So those are the kinds of things that she needs to look at. Thank you, Fran,

for the moment. Now still to come in today's programme, pensions. How do you get the best deal and avoid spending your old age in poverty? And of course, the serial, the fourth episode of Curious Under the Stars. Now, it may surprise you to find that the biggest financial risk a woman can take, according to the Chartered Institute of Insurance, is beginning a relationship. If it goes wrong, it tends to be the woman who loses out. And if they're cohabiting rather than married, the financial hit can be even worse for the woman if they split and then even though women tend to manage the household budget they're often as we've heard not across the bigger picture why are we so bad at talking to a partner about money and how can it be managed better and for i know you have a very interesting case of a traditional couple

and she earned more money than he did. How did they manage things and how much did they talk about it? Well, I think you're talking about the kind of the research that I did with Sirin Song, which was low to moderate income families. It wasn't so much actually that she earned more. But the couple that I think you're thinking of, the woman was a white collar worker and she was paid monthly. And the man was a manual worker and he was still paid weekly. And they'd never had a joint account. In fact, they'd always had single accounts. And what they did was that because she was responsible for the everyday management of the money and he was responsible for paying the mortgage and the utilities bills, which was quite a common pattern we came across in these low to moderate income

couples, they decided that his wages, which were weekly, would be paid into her account to pay the daily housekeeping and so on, and that her monthly wages would be paid into her account to pay the daily housekeeping and so on and that her monthly wages would be paid into his account to do the mortgage and the utilities and so on now she may well have been paid more than he was but my the interesting thing about that that I thought was that their gender roles in relation to the household budget were clearly more important in that particular case than the ownership of their wages now it's just one example so it's not necessarily typical but i just thought it was quite interesting lucy how familiar do you reckon that would be for younger couples or are

they better at it i think we're better at it i think uh you know we grow up um being forced to because you have to think about you know if you go to university you have to think about student debt you have to think about paying your way if you don't go to university you because you have to think about, you know, if you go to university, you have to think about student debt, you have to think about paying your way. If you don't go to university, you know, you have to get a job and sort it out that way where you might be living at home for longer. But on the whole, it's not for because, you know, it's not the desired layer of the land you want, you want to be able to afford to move out. So you have to be interested in money. It's not a frivolous thing um and I think obviously it is a philosophical topic and it is a feminist issue but I also think it's forgetting the practical issue I need personally I think I was a money journalist I knew all the

best deals I sorted out all the household money stuff and long term and short term and then I had kids and I wasn't sitting at a desk every day I wasn't at my computer so who's the one who's going to sort out the insurance needs renewing or the mortgage needs looking at is it going to be the person who's at a computer nine hours a day and then comes home and relaxes or is it the person who's running after a kid all day got a couple of hours in the evening I don't want to sit at my computer thinking about pensions but i think it's a practical issue but interestingly lucy the government equalities office says a mother's average weekly wage by the time a child is 12 is one third below the father's what are young couples you've spoken to make of that or indeed yourself um i was talking to my husband about this yesterday

we both went to university and came out with you know good qualifications and yes we went into different careers and um he happens to be in finance and i'm in journalism and they sadly aren't equally paid um but the fact is i have taken my career has taken a bit of a setback because I'm now back at work part time. And I'm looking after my kids and I'm going to earn less over our lifetime. And my pension is going to be lower because I'm part time. And we were talking about it. And what can you say? It's the way it is. It was my choice. Sarah, what can you say? It was choice. Well, it is. But I mean, on a practical level, you know, partners, husbands can

pay, start a pension for somebody else. I mean, there are things that you can do if you if that's the way you want to do it. I think it is interesting that, as Lucy says, it's it's not a generational thing, though. Those divides that we've had for a long time about where money goes and expectations about money still exist. I mean, you know, if I ruled the world, then I think we'd start completely differently in terms of how we work. Because at the moment, we're still tinkering around the edges at basically a kind of nine to five day with presenteeism. Whereas for things to be really equal, we need to sort of shake it up very radically so that women who have children can still have a place in the workplace that doesn't mean coming out with a salary that's a third lower when their child is 12.

And that maybe fathers might be doing a bit of childcare? Well, and fathers can get involved and that's encouraged both within the workplace and outside. And Lucy, I mean, I admire you being that candid, but when you finally end up with, what can you do, that's just the way it is. I'm sure you don't really mean that we shouldn't be doing anything about it otherwise you wouldn't be sitting here no i think as a personal experience most people i suppose it's a romantic view you think you are going to stay together forever you do have the kids and in the future fine his pension will be bigger but it'll be a shared pot that we'll both you know we'll both live in the house that we both earned that we both paid towards and we'll both have the pension. Obviously, the problem is if that doesn't happen,

then you've got a big problem. I think one of the things that actually surprised us with the work we did was how little difference there was between the generations. And actually, whilst we're seeing slight changes amongst millennial women, so that's sort of under 37-year-old, actually the difference between men and women in that generation is fundamental too in the way we see in other generations. under 37 year old that actually the difference between men and women in that generation is is

fundamental too in the way we see in other generations and we were quite surprised by that but we we assume it's going to take a few generations so for children in the next generations to grow up with parents who hopefully are working more flexibly as you say having different approaches to managing their money to really start seeing those differences. But we still saw the similar levels of difference in engagement and confidence in holding investment products in the size of investment pots. We saw similar levels amongst millennials, Gen X, baby boomers. Fran, I don't know if it was you who actually coined the phrase STD, sexually transmitted debt, but it certainly exists. What exactly would you say that means? No, it certainly wasn't me.

I couldn't claim that, I'm afraid, but it always makes people laugh. But of course, it's not a laughing matter at all. And what it means is, in particular, when couples split up, that it may well be that the woman stays in the house. And it depends partly whether they've had a joint account, of course. But if you've got a relationship which has not split up amicably, you've had a joint account, it may well be that the partner who's gone off

may have spent the money or taken some of it with him or whatever. And the woman stays at the same address. There may be occasions where it's her who's gone. Absolutely, it may be. But if you're thinking about families with children, then it's much more likely that she will be staying at the same address in the house, I think. And of course, yes, it could be either way. But the person who stays at the same address

may be the person who can get chased more easily for the debts that arise. I think the other thing which we haven't talked about, if we start talking about debt, the other thing we haven't talked about is, again, another colleague who did qualitative research, Jackie Good, talking about men and their attitude to debt. And some of the things that she explored were the ways in which men feel, in a way, a kind of do-it-yourself mentality towards debt, which is like do-it-yourself in the home, if you like. And therefore, it may well be that they don't seek help until too late

because they feel they ought to be able to sort it out. We were talking just now about men as breadwinners and so on, and this may be a consequence of that, that they feel they should be able to sort out the debt and therefore they don't necessarily get help until too late. And that, of course, may cause problems if they've got a partner. It may cause problems for the partner as well. Thanks, Fran.

We now move to the hottest of hot topics, pensions. We know that the issue facing the WASPI women who've suffered from changes to pensionable age have been going on for some time and are not yet resolved. But what about pension planning in general? How can you ensure that you will have a decent amount to live on in retirement? Sarah, what have you done? Well, when I used to work for the BBC, I joined the BBC scheme.

And I have to say, I probably joined it when I did, partly because at the time I was working on a personal finance programme, Moneybox, where, of course, the word pension wasn't just banned. It was, you know, it was one of the favourite words. And I think, I mean, of course, I realised that I should join a pension scheme. But it was the fact that it was something that was talked about every single day in the office, that I joined it as quickly as I did. When I went freelance, which was 20 years ago now, I remember thinking, if I don't start a pension straight away, there will always be something else to spend my money on. And it's the one thing, I don't want to sound at all smug here, but it's the one thing I am pleased I did because I set one up in the first month and I set it up to increase every year. And it was the best thing

I've did because there always was something to spend money on, you know, if you're freelance and the income is unpredictable. But without that, I think that the retirement that I'm personally looking at would be quite different. Amy, what have you done? Well, me personally? Yes. So again, I have a workplace pension, but, you know, truth be told, my husband works in finance. He understands a lot more about these things than I do. Yeah, I know. Sorry, deep intake of breath all round.

But, you know, I have a workplace pension I'm very happy with. But, you know, we go and see the financial advisor together. But I couldn't claim that I'm the one driving the financial decisions if I'm being totally honest. Lucy? I have a pension that I started. I think I was about 26. Similarly, I mean, at that stage, I had...

And that's a private pension? workplace pension I hadn't we hadn't bought a property yet so I had more disposable income and I've kept up this sort of minimal level and every year they send very I've my say it's a very clear document I think on that side the financial services have improved and it tells me how much I would have if I carried on at the same rate, how much I would have to retire on. And it's not enough. Jude?

Well, I took out a small pension. I've been self-employed all my life. So I took out a small pension. And for me and my ex-husband, we both will be getting this small pension. And then I also bought a property, which I rent out. So, you know, but it's modest. And when I look at what my dependents still are, like my two children and

now my grandchildren, I think I didn't make the right decisions. I'm also a waspy woman. So I haven't got a pension yet either. It's from the state. And I think, hopefully, because of the number of irons I have in the number of fires I've lit or been part of, I can keep going. But it does mean that I sort of think of myself as basically working forever. And, you know, at the moment, I don't mind. I probably will mind at some stage. Fran, what about you? Well, I've got a mixture because I'm partly self-employed and partly employed. I've got partly a personal pension, partly a workplace pension.

But I've also got, and I've just started to take last month for the first month, my pension from the state. And that's what I wanted to say a little bit about, because I think I've got a state earnings-related pension as well as the basic state pension. So you were not a WASPI? No, well, no, not in the terms of the second change to the date of retirement for people. But I think the important thing is that the state earnings related pension, of course, has now been abolished. So for anybody, man or woman,

who wants to have a pension that is higher than the basic state pension, which itself will be higher in future, is higher now. But for anybody who wants to do anything above that, they're now going to have to do that either via the private personal pension system or occupational pensions. And the problem with that is that they don't tend to be as good at redistributing either in favour of the lower paid or in favour of people who've had time out of their work for bringing up children as the state earnings related pension used to be and I'm afraid I think apart from the fact that the state pension is going up which is great but other than that I think we're going in the wrong

direction I'm afraid. Now Sarah I know you've followed the plight of the WASPI women what have you made of the arguments that have been put forward by both sides? Well as you say I mean I've been following it it's been the biggest issue on my website really and I have to say I mean I think they have been very wronged both in terms of the way the rise was introduced and the lack of notification. And some of the comments I get when I tweet about this from men generally is, you know, you want equality, but you don't want equality when it hurts you. The point is that when you retire, as these women are hopefully going to do in the next few years, it's based on your work, your sort of pension saving, looking back. It's not based on the world as we start out in work now.

And, you know, you don't have to go too far back to look at when it was quite legal to bar people who worked on a part time basis, mainly women from joining a pension scheme, go back further than, you know, women were not allowed to sometimes join a pension scheme for two or three years. And by that time, if they left work and then had children. So the landscape, both in terms of work, but especially in terms of workplace pensions, was very, very different. So for me, you know, I've had the chance to join a workplace pension and save for a private one. I expect equality. But for these women, the landscape has not been equal at all. How will it be resolved? Do you have any clue? Well, I used to think I did, but then nothing happened. So now the latest is, I mean, there are sort of different

organisations, all part of the 1950s women groups, sort of using slightly different tactics. And one has sought a judicial review, which took place on the 5th and 6th of June. I was there for the second day, which is the day when the government's barrister gave their defence. Now, we won't get the results at the time. They said sort of it will be months rather than weeks. I mean, listening to some of the defence, I found it very hard to listen to. If you're a woman who is affected, and there are quite a few women in the room at the time, I think they must have found it very, very difficult. I certainly hope they win.

And I'm an optimist by heart, so I'm keeping my fingers firmly crossed. I won't ask Jude whether she hopes they'll win or not, since she is one. But Jude, you know, women live longer, they save less. How would you persuade a young woman to sort a pension when she's worried about her bills? Get on with it now. Well, I think this goes deep into the idea of do you actually think of yourself as an independent young woman well i think it also goes into the fact that you've got you've got to pay rent and that's taking up most of your income i just think it's very easy to philosophize but if you're faced with a set of money and you haven't you can't afford a pension then that's just the fact i I understand, of course, and I've got a daughter who's young, so we're having this conversation.

But I think that unless we work out that staying alive and not in penury when you're an older person has got to be part of your thinking early. I mean, of course it's very, very difficult, but I think we do spend an awful lot on consumer items to do with decoration. You know, we are encouraged. The avocado argument. No, no, not just the avocado.

That we spend all our money on avocado and taste and easy jet holidays. You know, look, this is not me blaming women for making choices. I'm simply saying that we are, you know, the biggest thing that we spend money on until we have children is make-up, consumer items and clothes because we're encouraged to feel that our appearance is what finally validates us. And that in itself is part of the problem. So this isn't just about money. It's about the way that women are positioned in society

and then positioned themselves. By the way, we are doing like 15 sessions on this, Wow Money, throughout the country in the autumn. And I can guarantee you that girls and women will come to that session with that same I don't know what to do-ness. But we've got to move beyond I don't know what to do into look, how about this is a plan? Because, you know, we can't end up being helpless.

Amy? I think actually, you know, I feel a slight more sense of optimism with some of the newer entrants that are coming into this sort of marketplace investment. So, you know, products like Moneybox, where you're just getting people to essentially round up their change every time and drop that into some sort of investment vehicle. So I feel optimistic because the constraints you feel in the millennial cohort is so strong. And they, you know, as Lucy's talked about, the challenges they have. Anything you can do to make it easy to just start that habit, even if it's small, is really important for the longer term.

And I think the second thing is that pensions companies rely quite heavily on statistics and numbers to tell their stories. And they really need to be telling stories more effectively and engaging women on what it could mean for them in the future. So not just sort of playing back hard numbers, but really making it real and tangible. You know, if you put away this money now, look at this life you can have with your grandchildren when you're older. Look at these exciting things you can do. That's the way to engage people. It's a bit like weight loss. I mean, somebody who's very, very, very unfit.

You know, it's terribly daunting to think, well, how do I begin? But that's what the whole point about the SmartPost was thinking, look, you know, people can begin with Fitbit, they can get going, it's step at a time, you know, one crisp less at a time. I think there's a couple of things. Firstly, at the moment, a lot of pension companies don't even collect gender based data, they don't actually know what their female customers are doing compared to their male customers. And if they don't know, how can they understand the best way to talk to them? The second thing is that, as Amy said, I do think that engaging, talking to people in the right way, women and men, can change things. So there was some research

done a while ago where companies were using video that you can play on your mobile phone, which is how many of us consume news, instead of pension statements that were kind of three pages long. And they found that millennials were much more likely to do something, much more likely to read their statement or pay more. And actually women were the most likely. So it was actually just about talking to people in language they understand. Jude, you often hear women say, my home is my pension.

How good an idea is that? I don't think it is a good idea at all anymore for lots of reasons. First of all, lots of people aren't going to be able to own a home. And that's, therefore, a less secure mindset. And secondly, as we heard about splitting up, you often end up losing your home. And then, you know, that security is gone. But there's another thing about all of this as well, which is that it's not only about how do you sort of save yourself from poverty or have a good lifestyle, but it's also what could we do with our money if we used it really well?

You know, we haven't talked about the fact that women believe in better social conditions. They want better communities. They want the world to be better. And lots of women actually are driven by social purpose. And so if money is only associated with sort of self-gratification and big holidays, that doesn't necessarily interest women. Or even, you know, sometimes they feel that's actually a bad set of values. Why can't we talk about women not only making money for their own security, but also having ways of having more power in society through having more money

and therefore being able to call the shots more about investments, about the way we run things. I was talking to Jude Kelly, Amy Cashman, Lucy Tobin, Fran Bennett, who was in Oxford, and Sarah Pennells. Heather Wakefield said, the weakness of our equal pay law and lack of enforcement are key to the gender pay gap,

not just childcare, maternity and part-time working. Great contribution about the need for social policy, not individualised solutions to women's poverty. Catherine Finch said, Delighted you're discussing this. I have to be in control, so have always managed the money, household and overall future planning. We have a woman financial advisor.

My husband raised his eyebrows at first. Women must be adult about money and take control without fear. Jojoba Ann said, My husband was an accountant, so he managed our savings, but kept me fully informed. However, when he died, aged 59, I found myself on a steep learning curve. My mantra to friends is, do you know where your money is? Janet Barker said my husband died young, and I was left with two young children and a house and a life to manage alone. If it hadn't been for the enormous help I was given by financial advisors, I would have been completely lost.

I was educated and guided in money management by a brilliant financial advisor, and now, 20 years later, I'm proud that I have managed a loan and am still solvent. I'm constantly shocked by how many of my married friends leave all the big money decisions and management to their husbands. These are intelligent modern women but frankly they're often just lazy about these matters and I wonder how they'll cope if they ever find themselves alone. Joan said so glad you're talking money today. I left an abusive marriage in 2005 and have now retired on a state pension and little else. I wish I'd been able to save for my future, but in the stress of a dysfunctional family, it didn't seem possible. And Janet said, women's state pension age has risen unfairly quickly recently to 66 or 67.

No time to prepare for this for 50s women should imagine this decision was mostly taken by younger male civil servants from comfortable backgrounds relating to your discussion what on earth is wrong with the state having a realistic pension for everyone not just the wealthy few many poorer women can't afford higher private pension payments or have time to go to investment companies or have the knowledge to do this. As usual, the less well-off are losing out. Thank you for all your contributions.

Do join Jane tomorrow when she'll be talking to Kathy Burke, who's the actor, comedian, and also an acclaimed theatre director. And she's made a new series for Channel 4 called Kathy Burke's All Women. She'll be discussing attitudes to beauty, motherhood and relationships. And Jane will be asking what has she learned from the experience? That's tomorrow, two minutes past ten. Do join Jane if you can. Bye-bye. Hello, I'm John Ronson, the author of So You've Been Publicly Shamed.

This is my journey into the lives of the shamed, people ruined by a badly worded tweet or work faux pas. Along the way, I turn from being a keen shamer myself into somebody unsettled by this new zeal to judge and condemn, often on very weak evidence. That's So You've Been Publicly Shamed, read by me, John Ronson, and abridged specially for BBC Sounds. I'm Sarah Trelevan, and for over a year, I've been working on one of the most complex stories I've ever covered.

There was somebody out there who was faking pregnancies. I started, like, warning everybody. Every doula that I know. It was fake. No pregnancy. And the deeper I dig, the more questions I unearth. How long has she been doing this? What does she have to gain from this?

From CBC and the BBC World Service, The Con, Caitlin's Baby. It's a long story, settle in. Available now.