March 2023

Uganda: Digital Technologies Enable Women Take Charge of Their Retirement Prospects

International Women's Day is a good time to apply a gender lens to all aspects of life - not only to draw attention to the traditional challenges and gaps, but also to mark achievements and to spotlight the opportunities yet to be exploited. This year's theme - innovation and technology for gender equality - is an opportunity to reflect on the unexploited potential of ICTs, that could make women realise their dreams and aspire for higher goals. Access and use of...

Women on the front line everywhere!

In March 2023 women’s movements are playing a leading role in many countries around the world. This is neither new nor exceptional, but it should always be emphasized to show how women’s struggles are an integral part of the struggle to change, to revolutionize society, and that without women’s action society stops. In the year-long war caused by the atrocious invasion of Ukraine by Russian troops under Putin, Ukrainian women are participating in resistance in all its forms. Women serve...

UK. New figures show Gender Pension Gap remains stubbornly high

New statistics from trade union, Prospect, provide their latest estimate of the Gender Pensions Gap. They put the gap at 40.5% for 2020-21, essentially unchanged since the figure was first estimated half a decade ago. This is significantly more than the gender pay gap, and represents an average annual £7,100 shortfall. The latest figures show that despite an increased focus on the gap, current government policies are failing to provide any improvement. This has led Prospect to warn of a “ticking...

February 2023

Recognize unpaid care work in Colombia: a historical debt to women

By Yaneth Vargas Sandoval This socio-legal research article aims to address unpaid care work in Colombia, so the first part will address how women despite the existence of the right to Equality and non-discrimination as a human right, in the reality of this right is not fulfilled, since it is women who must face unequal conditions in access and permanence in the labor market, they will endure salary gaps and it is difficult for them to access the old-age pension. All...

The Road to Women Empowerment through the Mechanism of Self Help Groups

By Pallavi Mahajan Women constitute 48.10 percent of the population of India and only 27 percent of this adult women population has a steady income, which makes women ‘poorest of the poor (World Bank 2019). It has been asserted that comprehensive progression and inclusive development in India would be conceivable only when women are considered as equivalent agents in the development debate (Mazumdar 2004). In this parlance, the development agencies have increasingly regarded ‘empowerment’ as an essential objective to improve...

January 2023

Gender-Inclusive Financial and Demographic Literacy: Lessons from the Empirical Evidence

By: Giovanna Apicella, Enrico G. De Giorgi, Emilia Di Lorenzo & Marilena Sibillo Longevity crucially affects demand for pensions, insurance products and annuities. Consistent empirical evidence shows that women have historically experienced lower mortality rates than men. In this paper, we study a measure of the gender gap in mortality rates, we call “Gender Gap Ratio”, across a wide range of ages and for four countries: France, Italy, Sweden and USA. We show the stylized facts that characterize the trend...

Ireland. Fears Pensions Gender Gap Will Worsen

Proposals by the Government for an auto-enrolment pension scheme will leave women worse off and "widen the pensions gender gap", an Oireachtas committee will be warned today. The scheme is designed to tackle Ireland's severely low pension coverage rates, with only one in three private sector workers signed up to a retirement savings scheme. Under the proposals, for every €3 saved by a worker, the Government will add another €1 - with employers also matching contributions of up to 6% of...

US. Unmarried Women No Longer Pay a Financial Penalty in Retirement

On the retirement front, a new study has some good news for unmarried women: They’re no longer falling behind their married peers. Still, it’s tough to celebrate equality when it seems to be driven mostly by the falling fortunes of men. Studies about how prepared US workers overall are for retirement tend to be incredibly depressing — and even more so when they focus on women, who say in staggering percentages that they’re worried about running out of money. Much...

The Effect of Pension Wealth on Employment

By Sebastian Becker, Hermann Buslei, Johannes Geyer & Peter Haan This study provides novel evidence about the pension wealth elasticity of employment. For the identification we exploit reform-induced variation of pension wealth that is related to the number of children but which does not affect the implicit tax rate of employment. We use a difference-in-differences estimator based on administrative data from the German pension insurance and find that, on average, the negative employment effect of pension wealth is significant and economically...

December 2022

UK. More than 8.6mn missing out on workplace pension savings

More than 8.6mn people from “underpensioned” groups are missing out on workplace pension savings, according to a report by Now Pensions. The report, published on December 7 in collaboration with the Pensions Policy Institute, found a number of common factors within these groups that are causing barriers to saving, including non-traditional work patterns, a lower percentage of homeownership, and being impacted by inequalities in the labour market. People from underpensioned groups – including ethnic minorities, people with disabilities, carers and single...