Paying the postage for married women for a year has reached my state pension record

I am a 74 year old married woman receiving a reduced state pension as I am a few years short of a full criminal record.

Between 1978 and 1985, I cared for three children at home, all under the age of 16.

Four of these years I received credit for my state pension. However, from 1978 to 1981, this was not allowed because I supposedly paid a married woman’s “little stamp.”

My youngest daughter was born in 1979 and I don’t think I worked during those years. When I inquired, I was told that in 1978 I had three small part-time jobs and paid a small postage.

They didn’t believe I had a job between 1980 and 1981, but the system assumed that if I had worked I would have been paid a small stamp – even though I never worked in those two years.

Apparently I had to look at them (whoever they were) with a crystal ball that if I went back to work I would no longer opt for the small stamp.

In fact I have paid full national insurance all my working life from the age of 16 when I worked full time or later became self-employed, except in 1978. Can you help in any way?

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Steve Webb replies: When the National Insurance Scheme was created after World War II, it was assumed that for many couples there would be a male breadwinner and a female financially dependent on him, both in working age and in retirement.

On the basis of this assumption, married women who did have paid work were allowed to opt for a lower premium rate for the national insurance schemes.

This is formally known as making a “reduced rate election,” but is more commonly known as paying the “married woman’s stamp.”

The agreement was that married women would save money on their NI contributions for those years, but that they would not build up a state pension for those years themselves.

The assumption was that a married woman would not receive her own pension after retirement, but would receive a basic pension of 60 percent of the ‘married woman’ when her husband retired.

This would be based on his record of NI contributions.

By the mid-1970s, there were over four million married women paying the reduced rate.

However, with a much greater emphasis on workplace equality, it seemed increasingly inappropriate to build a state pension system based on the assumption that millions of women were simply financially dependent on their husbands.

In response, legislation was passed in 1975 which meant that from 1978/79 no new married woman could opt for the ‘reduced stamp’.

However, some women had been paying a reduced stamp for years and might not have received any benefit from a short period with the full stamp later in their working life. Therefore, it was decided to allow those who were already on the reduced seal to continue.

Crucially, the ability to continue paying a reduced stamp after 1978 expires if there is a gap of more than two years where they pay no NI at all.

After such a break, a married woman returning to work would have to go back to full stamping.

Unfortunately, it seems that you have been caught out by this rule.

From what you said it sounds like you did some work at the reduced rate in 1978 (but if you had paperwork from that time with a pay slip showing you paid the full rate you could challenge it).

If so, your “reduced rate election” will remain active for the next two years unless you actively withdraw it.

This meant that even if you were not working you were treated as if you were on the small stamp of 1979/80 and 1980/81.

Each year you paid *or qualified* for NI against the reduced stamp is a lapse in your NI record, as you discovered.

Although ‘Home Responsibilities Protection’ (HRP) had just been introduced for people who were at home with children, it was decided in particular that women with a reduced seal could not receive HRP.

So even though you were at home with kids in 1979/80 and 1980/81 and otherwise could have benefited from HRP, you didn’t pay the reduced stamp because of your “live” election.

As you say, the only way you could have avoided this would have been to actively ‘revoke’ your reduced rate elections at the end of 1978/79.

Unfortunately, it is now difficult to see how all this can be rectified.

The whole “married woman stamp” system has caused frustration among large numbers of people over the years and, as a result, left many women with lower pensions.