A WOMAN whose life has been heavily impacted by changes to pension rules is calling on others to join her in campaigning against pension inequality.

Earlier this year, researchers from the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) found that more than a million women in their early 60s became poorer as a result of delays to their state pension, with poverty rates rising sharply among that group as a result.

Since 2010, women’s state pension age has been raised gradually by the Government from age 60 in a bid to match the man’s SPA of 65 by 2018, with a further increase to 66 for both sexes expected by 2020.

The nationwide WASPI (Women Against State Pension Inequality) movement is battling the contentious changes, which affect women born in the 1950s.

The group - which agrees with equalisation but not “with the unfair way the changes were implemented”- is campaigning to achieve transitional state pension arrangements for those affected.

Middlesbrough's WASPI is working to inform local women of the changes and to encourage them to raise complaints against the Government.

Barbara Parker, a 63-year-old supermarket worker, said she has been left exhausted by the changes in her pension age. She said: “Two years before I turned 60, I read in the newspaper that my pension age was going to be delayed by nearly six years. I was in a professional job but due to the fact I wasn’t going to be retiring at 60, my hours were cut and I had to take a more physical role.

“I know I’ll have to work until I’m nearly 66 and knowing there’s another couple of years to go makes me think I’m going to really struggle to get there.

“It is a real struggle some days and it feels so unfair, there is so much injustice in this - a friend of mine is a year older than me and she got her pension when she turned 63 but I’m still working, still paying national insurance. It feels so wrong that for one year’s difference, the Government can delay my pension by nearly three years.

“We might be living longer but our bodies are still ageing and for people who are doing physical jobs at nearly 66, it’s too much. I’m stacking shelves and working on the checkout and it’s a physical struggle that is getting harder as the months go by.”

Middlesbrough WASPI is currently providing assistance to those who want to lodge a complaint with the Government. For more information, visit Middlesbrough WASPI Supporters Group on Facebook or attend their next meeting, at the Blue Bell in Acklam on Wednesday, September 13 from 6pm.