By Nicola McDougall, Editor, The Female Investor
The inequality in superannuation balances as well as the entrenched gender pay gap means more women than men are likely to spend their retirement in poverty, according to government research.
Research from the Workplace Gender Equality Agency (WGEA) found that more elderly women than men are living in poverty in Australia and are also more likely to re-enter the workforce following retirement, often due to financial constraints.
The report also found that women are twice as likely as men to sell their house and move to lower-cost accommodation because of tight financial circumstances in retirement.
The WGEA research continues to highlight the inequitable financial outcomes between genders in Australia.
Many women are worried about their lack of superannuation and about having to work until they are 80 instead of retiring. In fact, many women are forced to re-enter the workforce in their twilight years because they can’t afford to live without doing so.
One in three Australian women retire with no super. Plus, women who do manage to save, may still wind up with less than half the retirement funds of their male counterparts.
About 70 per cent of women also rely on the pension to financially survive in retirement – even though the superannuation scheme has been in place for decades now.
One of the reasons for the imbalance in financial outcomes between genders is because the current superannuation framework does not account for common female experiences in the workplace.
WGEA research shows that women have lower lifetime earnings and are more likely to work part-time, or in more precarious forms of employment as well as to take time out of the workforce for unpaid caring responsibilities. All of these factors affect a woman’s ability to save retirement savings.
Likewise, the gender pay gap exists with women on average earning 77 per cent of men’s earnings, while women are much more likely to earn under $60,000 per year than men.
In fact, according to the WGEA Australian Gender Equality Scorecard men are twice as likely to be highly paid than women:
- Men are twice as likely as women to be in the top earnings quartile, earning $120,000 and above, while women are 50 per cent more likely than men to be in the bottom quartile, earning $60,000 and less
- Over 85 per cent of Australian employers still pay men more than women on average · Women were earning, on average, about 77 per cent of men’s earnings last year.
Further WGEA research found that the gender pay gap is at its widest for women aged between 35 to 54 years of age – with the peak gap occurring for women in their mid-40s.
The gender pay gap starts to widen significantly when women are about 35, because this is the decade when they are most likely to be out of the workforce caring for children.
However, even when they return to work, the pay gap continues because their time out of the workforce means they have missed out on vital career promotions and progression and are therefore less likely to hold highly paid jobs than men.
It’s important to recognise that this stage of life is also the most common age for divorce in this country, too, which will add further financial pressures on women in the lead-up to retirement.
