Between 2010 and 2016, the state pension age for women rose from age 60 to 63. The IFS analysis shows that as a result 1.1m fewer women are receiving a state pension and government is providing £4.2bn less through state pensions and other benefits.

For women aged 60 to 62, who are now under the state pension age, the reform has also increased employment rates substantially, boosting the gross earnings of these women by £2.5bn in total. This – and the fact that employee national insurance contributions are paid up to the (now higher) state pension age – has boosted government revenues by £0.9bn.

The IFS says the net effect is that household incomes for women in this age group have fallen by around £32 per week on average. Income poverty among 60 to 62 year old women is up sharply (by 6.4 percentage points compared to a pre-reform poverty rate among women of this age of 14.8%), due to the fact that the working age tax and benefit system is considerably less generous than that faced by those over the state pension age.

However, the think tank says it found no evidence of any change in measures of material deprivation, suggesting that so far families have generally managed to avoid higher levels of deprivation by smoothing their spending over time.

The research shows that reduced state benefits (most importantly the state pension), increased employee national insurance contributions, and higher employment mean the increased state pension age from 60 to 63 boosts the public finances by £5.1bn per year by 2015–16.

The IFS points out this public finance benefit will increase as the state pension age rises further, reaching 65 in 2018 and (along with men) 66 in 2020. The higher rates of income poverty caused by the higher state pension age are not persistent in the sense that there is no impact of the reform on income poverty rates once women reach their, now higher, state pension age.

Jonathan Cribb, a senior research economist at the IFS, and an author of the report, said: ‘The tax and benefit system is much more generous to those above the state pension age than those below it. So while increasing the state pension age is a coherent response to the public finance challenge posed by rising longevity it does place a further pressure on household budgets.

‘It is important that the government communicates the ongoing increases in the state pension age clearly so that families can plan for their retirement as well as possible.’

IFS working paper, Can’t wait to get my pension: the effect of raising the female state pension age on income, poverty and deprivation, is here.