Equal Opportunities Commission calls for equal annuity rates

The Equal Opportunities Commission (EOC) is calling on the government to amend the Sex Discrimination Act to "make sex-based actuarial factors unlawful".

These actuarial factors come into effect when, for example, the fund accumulated by a personal pension, and in the future stakeholder pensions, is converted into regular pension payments. The pensions industry applies different annuity rates to men and women on the basis that women tend to live longer than men and so will draw their pension over a longer period. This means that women have to build up bigger pension funds to secure the same retirement income as men.

EOC chair Julie Mellor, said annuities "made a nonsense of equal treatment for women", and that the rules risked dissuading many women from taking out a pension.

Mellor points out that: "Women currently have a retirement income 55% of men. A change here would go some way to redress the balance."