The median pension wealth among working-age men in the UK is more than double that of working-age women’s, a report from the Pensions Policy Institute (PPI) has shown.

Its report, sponsored by Now Pensions, analysed data from the Wealth and Assets Survey to complement its Underpensioned Index 2024 Edition.

It showed that the median pension wealth among all men was £30,410 compared to £13,817 among women.

Among those who had pension wealth, the median amount for men was £77,335 while for women it was £45,852.

Nearly three quarters (74 per cent) of working-age men had money in a pension compared to 70 per cent of working-age women.

Overall, working-age people’s median pension wealth was £20,647, but for those who had a pension the median amount was £60,820, with 72 per cent of working-age people having some form of pension wealth.

The report also highlighted stark pension gaps among other underpensioned groups.

Disabled people had significantly lower levels of pension wealth than the general working-age population, with their median of £0 showing that at least half had no pension wealth at all.

Among working-age disabled people with pensions, their median pension wealth was £47,706.

The median pension wealth of single mothers was also very low, with a median of £3,108, while single mothers with a pension had a median of £27,036, the lowest level among the groups analysed.

Disabled people were the group least likely to have any pension wealth (37 per cent), followed by single mothers (60 per cent), and women (70 per cent).

At the other end of the spectrum, people with multiple jobs were the most likely to have pension wealth (87 per cent).

Pension wealth generally increased with age, with men having higher median pension wealth than women at every age, highlighting that the gender pensions gap persists across lifetimes.

“The groups considered tend to have lower levels of pension wealth than the general population of working-age people,” the PPI said.

“The Underpensioned Index 2024 report highlighted the lower levels of employment opportunity, as well as lower levels of income from employment, as drivers of lower pension saving.

“The data in this paper shows that it can be difficult to tease out the underlying causes if the data is considered only at a high level.

“Digging in to the data reveals how groups such as divorced people or those with multiple jobs may appear to have higher levels of pension wealth, but when compared on a like-for like basis with the general population, they tend to have lower levels of pension wealth than the population average.”

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