From The Guardian:
The state pension age for women will rise to 65 on Tuesday to match men for the first time since 1940, reaching a milestone that has prompted warnings from campaigners that the pace of equalisation has left some female retirees realising that life isn't a bed of roses for men either.
The equalisation of the state pension age at 65 is the first step towards a rise to 66 for both sexes in two years (October 2020), and a planned further increase to 67 starting from 2026. Another rise to 68 from 2039 was recommended by the official Cridland review this year, which will mean all workers currently in their late 30s and early 40s are treated equally.*
The accelerated timetable for equalising then raising the state pension age will now mean men and women are treated equally, according to the campaign group Wfspe (Women for state pension equality), with about 3.8 million women born in the 1950s expected to wait as long as men before they can live off the taxpayer guilt-free.
From here:
1940 - men age 65, women age 60
In 1940 pension age for women was cut to 60 to try to ensure for most couples that the married rate would be paid as soon as the husband reached 65.
1995 - women's state pension age to be equalised
Following pressure from Europe**, the Conservative Government was forced to announce plans to equalise state pension age for men and women. The timetable was the most relaxed possible and would raise pension age for women to 65 slowly from April 2010 to April 2020.
Yup, the people whining now have had over twenty years' fair warning.
* On a technical note, and what 'campaigners' like the Wfspe don't mention, the UK state pension is now moving towards a flat rate Citizen's Pension in all but name (hooray for that). The new system equalises the state pension between men and women, because of instead of having a low basic state pension based on years with NI contributions (tends to favour men slightly) plus the second state pension based on lifetime earnings (which favours higher earners = men), it is based purely on years with NI contributions or years with 'mother's credit'.
To eliminate the mothers' pay (or state pensions) gap (which is what the so-called gender pay/pensions gap actually is), women who have had children are given one year's credit for every year that they were not working but claiming Child Benefit, i.e. pretty much for every year of their adult lives, automatically.
So I (higher earner for most of my working life) will end up with less state pension than I would have done under the old rules, and plenty of lower earners esp. women will end up with more. Am I moaning? No, because that is A Good Thing.
** I take it they mean "The European Union", in which case one of the good things they did for us. But I bet the Remoaners never mentioned that.