Men’s final salary pensions nearly double women’s at state pension age

[IwantToRetire]

Men’s DB (final salary) annual pensions are worth nearly twice the value of women’s, at £13,900 compared to £7,500 net per annum, while their DC (contribution) pensions are worth more than three times as much, at £90,000 compared to £28,500.

The findings come from a Department for Work and Pensions analysis of 7,802 adults aged 62 to 65 from the 1958 National Child Development Study, examining their preparation for retirement and overall pension adequacy.

Around 8 in 10 participants had some form of private pension, but women were more likely to rely heavily on the State Pension and less likely to meet a moderate Retirement Living Standard.

Meanwhile, nearly half, 47 per cent, of participants were expected to depend on the state pension for between 67 and 100 per cent of their retirement income. This group was more likely to include women, those with lower educational attainment, the self-employed and renters. Around half were also estimated not to have sufficient pension income to maintain their pre-retirement standard of living.

Continues https://corporate-adviser.com/mens-db-pensions-nearly-double-womens-at-state-pension-age/

Because they work more. Do you think a magic fairy brings the pensions?

Yes this is a symptom of working less and earning less. There are structural and sexist reasons women work less and also some ignorance around the consequences.

Some of the women will have husbands with good pensions in which case they'll be fine assuming shares finances. Not something Id be happy with but works for lots of couples. My husband has zero pension but will be ok - he'll either be living off mine or if we divorce he'll get half.

There can't be many still retiring on a Final Salary Pension.

Most companies closed them to new people 20 years ago

Get a life.

What a really facile remark.

This is a feminist forum.

Try really hard and think why is it that men can work more.

Because of women's unpaid labour.

If women were paid for all the unpaid work that allows menn to do paid work you will find that women do far more work than men.

Join a consciousness raising group.

Happened to my friend. She worked part time to care for their boys whilst he escalated up the career ladder. Thankfully she’s now getting half his pension through divorce. I wonder how many women don’t and just walk away.

It is so symptomatic of the false story about women having the same rights as men to be part of the work force.

And even if they are working full time they are more than likely still facing the majority of the unpaid work at home.

And not having time for all those outside of work hours socialising that lets men network and build up contacts etc..

Glad your friend got a share through divorce.

I suppose that at least shows that the law recognises that women's unpaid work allows men to acccumulate wealth.

Women do need to be aware though when they make the choice to give up work in favour of unpaid labour that their pensions will take the hit.

so many women seem to think as far as “my salary doesn’t cover childcare” and no further. No thought for no paid work = no pension.

i say on here time and time again when women post saying they want to give up work- only do so if Dh’s salary can also cover payment of your pension contributions.

bottom line is don’t give up work unless your dh is earning enough to financially compensate you. Which it very rarely is.

Yes ok but when you have young kids what’s your choice? You don’t see them. Women are caught between a rock and a hard place.

Actually that is not true - it’s a pretty common myth that you get no pension contributions while on mat leave. Your employer is still meant to contribute but there were news stories around a few weeks ago that many haven’t been and some women have been denied money that’s rightfully theirs. Obviously the contributions are not as high as if the employee was at work and paying in too – but I thought it was interesting so many women (and apparently employers) are not aware this is meant to be happening.

And btw - I think the whole situation smacks of structural inequality. Politicians moan about a declining birth rate but surely that’s just a symptom of the fact women have been so screwed over for decades. Western economies enjoyed the boom years of women entering the workforce but made so precious few accommodations for the very different requirements many women need (due to unpaid labour). And where have unions been in all this? I can’t help feeling they should have done so much more to raise awareness/ fight to close the pay/ pensions gap down the years. Perhaps if they spent less time declaring men can be women and more looking at the issues actual women face at work, we might be closer to resolving this.

As you can tell, it makes me pretty angry!

And sorry - I thought you meant mat leave, rather than giving up work entirely. Mouth engaged before brain (again!)

This is very relevant as these pensions are no longer in the private sector but existed at a time when the traditional family set up existed and more women giave up work.

This makes me think mumsnet.is highly represented by public sector employee?

I have a final salary pension from an earlier job but not worth much at all. Changing from final salary to defined contribution has affected women more than men.

Agreed. Although it has been detrimental generally as the money is substantially less unless you are a high earner.

Totally, when I started I thought I would have kids, work part time until they were older, work full time once in high school and then retire. My final salary pension (frozen) is a lot more proportionally than my DB one.

I do think a lot of women just don't realise just quite the hit that stopping work, even temporarily can have on your pension. I certainly didn't think about it when I was younger. Turns out that having a crappy exh though, that meant I iwas in no position to stop working, filled a lot of that gap in for me. I have family members if the same age though, who gave up working to raise children and never went back (even now that their kids are adults and some of those kids are repeating that same pattern). I worry about how they will fare as even if their husbands have a reasonable pension, it's likely to still be tough once neither partner is working.

I work with quite a few women in my department. We have both a defined benefit pension and a defined contribution we can add to. I used to directly ask ‘are you adding money to your dc pot? It’s a tax efficient way of saving’ Many were not because they just hadn’t been bothered to read the stuff on the website or navigate the three clicks to add an amount of their salary. Maybe the men were similar but as women we don’t always help ourselves either.

I’ve often wondered that. I’m in my 50s and only one person in both my and dp’s friendship group has a final salary pension but there are loads and loads of people on Mumsnet with them.

The thing is, speaking as a woman in her 60s, most women I know have been proactive regarding their pensions. They have made financial decisions regarding returning to work after having children, and understand that choosing to work part time will impact their pension. It’s not a secret. We are not a homogenous group of people who are beholden to a homogenous group of males who want to keep us barefoot and pregnant.

I have a small DB pension from a private sector employer I worked for straight out of university.

No auto enrolment at that time, and in fact that employer wouldn't allow you to join the pension scheme until you'd worked there for two years.

I don't know how common that was (intrigued now!) but it would mean that someone moving from job to job in early career could accrue no pension at all.

Interesting. I'm a single mum, never married. Always had full time care of my ds because ex wouldn't.
But that has worked in my favour because I have always had to work full time, I've paid into a dc pension my whole working life.
At 62 and still working full time, I can retire as soon as my mortgage ends, this summer, so oddly, I am far better off financially than most married women. And my house is mine, not shared.

And you don’t see this as being a problem or systemic or anything? We know why it is, same as we know there is a gender pay gap. The issue is what can we do to make society more equal for the women who are invariably juggling multiple roles as well as paid work.

Surely this is due to fewer years working/part time work due to childcare and the fact that fathers will likely have high paying roles.

I was definitely one of the ones who didn’t think about pensions when going part time and taking a career break to follow DH abroad. Have lost about 8 years in total and now separated and close to retirement age I really notice that gap!
Luckily I am in a DB scheme and do still have 26 years of pension accumulated so will not have to rely on state pension. Just have to work until mid 60s to make it work.
Like most couples we had very little spare when kids were small and just coped on my reduced salary. There was nothing extra for pension AVCs.

That's interesting too. I've never had a dB pension but, working in the IT industry, I moved jobs frequently during the early days. The DC pensions that were available started usually after the first month so at least we didn't spend 2 years without a pension.

And you don’t see this as being a problem or systemic or anything? We know why it is, same as we know there is a gender pay gap. The issue is what can we do to make society more equal for the women who are invariably juggling multiple roles as well as paid work

I think it’s far less of an issue today when you look at earnings by gender in younger people and the fact so many aren’t having dc. And the mothers who do decide to have dc are far more likely to work ft etc than before.