Women the losers from welfare cuts

Women's Income Network believes the government should maintain universal child benefit and equal entitlement to the state pension ( Political briefing , 27 October). Plans to withdraw child benefit from mothers in couple families with a higher-rate taxpayer undermines the principle of equal entitlement to pension accrual established in the Pensions Act 2007 . The loss of the benefit will hit women with the double whammy of the loss of automatic basic and second state pension credits and place them at increased risk of poverty in old age. Women's greater longevity and lower lifetime earnings and pensions mean two-thirds of the poorest pensioners are women. Motherhood typically incurs a lifetime downward pull on women's pay and employment prospects. It is contrary to the principle of independent taxation for a woman, still likely to earn less than a man, to lose child benefit because of her partner's earnings. It prejudices stay-at-home mothers by withdrawing their only guaranteed income. Women in better-off households can still be hit by relationship breakdown or loss of employment. It penalises women who are basic-rate taxpayers and counter-intuitively redistributes from the purse to the wallet. It undermines women's financial independence, increasing reliance on a partner's goodwill. Income can be unequally shared even in better-off families, but money given to direct to the mother is the statistically proven best way of targeting children. The universality of child benefit protects a woman and her children in time of crisis without the need for new claims and reflects society's support for the wellbeing of all children and families. Alexandra Kemp West Norfolk Women and Carers' Pensions Network Susan Himmelweit Professor of economics, Open University Dr Deborah Price King's College London Ruth Lister Emeritus professor of social policy, Loughborough University Kate Green MP Baroness Hollis Jillian Foster UK Women's Budget Group Sam Smethers Chief executive, Grandparents Plus Frances O'Grady Deputy general secretary, TUC Janet Veitch Fawcett Society Professor Jill Rubery Professor of human resources, Manchester Business School