The number of women without any pension arrangements has nearly doubled from 7 per cent in 2017 to 13 per cent and remains higher than the proportion of men without pension arrangements, Aegon has claimed.
Research carried out by the provider for its bi-annual Retirement Confidence Survey has also led it to estimate that 34 per cent of women don’t know how much they have saved in pensions compared to 16 per cent of men.
It also revealed that women (40 per cent) are more likely than men (32 per cent) to have never worked out their income needs for retirement.
Aegon head of pensions, Kate Smith, believes that there are two main causes of the gender pensions gap.
The first, she says, is a lack of pensions awareness among women, and the second is the current auto-enrolment criteria, which she said are more likely to exclude women from saving for retirement in the workplace.
She pointed out that women who are more likely to be lower earners and work part time, and are therefore missing out on the benefits of retirement saving as they are less likely to meet the eligibility criteria for auto-enrolment. In addition, those women who are self-employed risk being in a similar position without access to auto-enrolment.
“Auto-enrolment needs to be more inclusive to include lower earners, who are disproportionately female,” argued Smith.
“A solution needs to be found for individuals with multiple jobs, each below £10,000 allowing them to benefit automatically from an employer contribution. This will help to close the gender pension gap.”
“It’s hugely disappointing to see that despite the attention being given to addressing the gender pay gap, this increased awareness does not seem to have inspired women to show more interest in their pensions,” she continued.
“Knowledge is key to helping solve the gender pension gap so it’s really worrying to see that more than a third of women remain in the dark about what they have saved for retirement — if anything at all.”
Smith added that women who are looking to set retirement goals obtain a state pension scheme forecast and fill in any national insurance gaps they may have accumulated — due to maternity leave or taking time out of work as a carer — in order to maximise their state pension.
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