How to close the £100k pensions gap
What you should remember from this episode
Emilie Bellet is the Founder and CEO of Vestpod.
Women earn 7% less than men on average in the UK. The gap widens over 40 years old.
On average women have £100k less in retirement than men in the UK.
It will take 169 years to close the gender pay gap globally, according to the World Economic Forum.
The cost of childcare in the UK is right up there with the highest in the world.
Women retire with only 20% of the pensions savings (£) of men because i) women earn less than men, and ii) they don’t benefit from compounding because far fewer invest their money than men.
Boys get more pocket money than girls!
The gender pay gap is driven by fewer women being employed in senior, high paying positions than men. This is because women are still generally the primary carers. Women drop out of the workforce when they become mothers (or move to working part time), so they miss out on the promotions that men get. This is called the motherhood penalty.
The jobs and industries that women work in (or don’t work in) also contribute to the gender pay gap. For instance, in finance, which is a high paying industry, there are more men than women to start with, but particularly so at the top. This means there are a lot of men in finance earning a lot more than women in other careers.
How can men help?
Men can pay more into their partners’ pensions.
Men can contribute more to the household budget because they earn more, obvs.
Heterosexual couples can have separate pots so women still have their own money, their own accounts etc. This gives women autonomy and control rather than it all being in one account or the man controlling everything.
