June 2022

Financial Literacy, Gender and Investment Choices

By Xin Wen, Zhiming Cheng & Massimiliano Tani Over the past thirty years Chinese households have enjoyed substantive increases in income and savings and witnessed a rapidly developing financial market offering investment choices and risks away from bank deposits – the traditional form of financial investment. We explore whether this evolving landscape has been advantageous to every investor or mainly those with better financial literacy, by focusing on the portfolio decisions of the household head, by gender. Using data from...

The Gender Pensions Gap Report 2022 … and how to close it

By Joanne Segars OBE & Samantha Gould  Lower incomes throughout a woman’s working life will invariably impact their pension savings, creating an obvious pension gap. Furthermore, women who take time away from work to have children or for other caring responsibilities contribute to the widening gulf that we see between men and women’s pension wealth. Three million women are effectively “locked out” of workplace pension saving because they do not meet the £10,000 auto enrolment eligibility criteria. We are on a mission...

UK. Women Need Extra 18 Years of Work to Equal Pension Savings as Male Peers, Survey Finds

Women would need to work an additional 18 years full-time to save the same amounts of money into their pensions as men, research suggests. Women aged 65 will typically have accumulated £69,000 in private pension wealth, compared with average men's savings of £205,800, according to workplace pension provider Now: Pensions and the Pensions Policy Institute (PPI). With women living on average four years longer than men, they need to save more throughout their lifetime to accommodate longer periods in retirement, the...

May 2022

UK. MPs urged to consider state auto-enrolment credits to combat gender pensions gap

State auto-enrolment (AE) contribution credits for career breaks could “radically change” the framework of occupational pensions and help reduce the inequality of the widening gender pensions gap, Hymans Robertson has said. In an open letter to the Work and Pensions Select Committee, Hymans Robertson partner, Chris Noon, argued that whilst the introduction of AE contribution credits would be a "significant cost" to government, time away from work is the biggest contributor to the gender pensions gap and needs to be...

US. The Impact Of Government Retirement Requirements On Small-Business Owners

Retirement funds in America accumulate mainly through employer-sponsored plans including 401(k) accounts. As of 2021, 68% of private industry workers had access to this type of plan. However, while an exact number is not known, in 2017, the U.S. Census Bureau estimated that only 41% of those with access to a 401(k) contributed to it. As a response to this issue, a number of states have passed retirement mandates requiring businesses to offer their employees a retirement savings plan. While...

Half of older women fear having to work beyond UK state pension age – study

Half of older women fear they will have to keep working beyond the state pension age in order to make ends meet, according to research. As many as 53% of women aged 45 and over surveyed by the older worker advice website Workingwise.co.uk said they were concerned that their pension would not be enough for them to be financially independent in later life. The study, carried out to investigate women’s economic situation as they approach retirement, exposes the lasting impact that...

UK. State pension to hit £10,600 as triple lock returns – up to £1,000 extra income next year

The State Pension could rise by almost £1,000 to more than £10,600 a year as inflation rockets past 10 percent and the triple lock is restored. Read also UK. Less than third of schemes regularly track individual fund performance This would be the single biggest increase ever and could see the new State Pension top £10,600 a year. However, those who retired before April 6, 2016, on the old State Pension will get a smaller increase. Yesterday, the Bank of England forecast...

Half of Hong Kong women face retirement income challenges

Only one in three women say they are confident in their ability to make their pension contributions, whereas 40% of men say the same, according to the Fidelity’s Global Women & Money Study 2022. Read also Millennials Will Make Impact Investing Mainstream Due to the lack of confidence in financial planning, 46% of the surveyed Hong Kong women are worried they are unprepared financially for retirement, while 43% of men felt the same. Read also On the path to bigger income in...

April 2022

UK. PensionBee publishes gender pay gap figures for 2021

PensionBee, a leading online pension provider, has revealed a median hourly pay gap of just 1.6%, and a median bonus pay gap of 0% among its staff, as at 31 December 2021. The gap is in line with PensionBee’s target of 0%, with a variance of +/- 5% owing to the overall size of the employee base. This is the second year that PensionBee has voluntarily reported on its pay gap, as part of its commitment to wage equality, in...

March 2022

Affordable childcare the key to boosting women’s retirement savings

More affordable early childhood education and care could help boost the superannuation of Australian women, who are currently retiring with one third less super than men. According to a new report from Industry Super Australia, increasing the child care subsidy for low- and middle-income families to 95 per cent and flattening taper rates, could see a woman on the median wage, if she moved from part-time to full-time work, retire with an extra $118,000. Industry Super Australia says improving women’s workforce...