While its known that retirement savings differs between men and women, a new study has shown the ‘gender pay gap’ begins from the first days of employment. Detrimentally , women face a deficit of more than $80,000 that they fail to recoup towards the end of their careers.
Research Lead, Monash Business School’s Dr Carly Moulang, said the results provide an explanation of why women persistently fall behind men when it comes to superannuation savings and therefore rely heavily on the age pension in retirement.
“Gender-based differences in labour force participation, the presence of dependent children, and other caring responsibilities impact on women’s ability to access waged work more than men. Women are also more likely to be employed part-time and work fewer hours,”
The study used administrative data from Mercer Australia to examine superannuation accumulation trends across a 10-year period from 2002-2012. This allowed them to track specific people during this period to estimate the cumulative effects on their individual retirement savings. The age cohorts tracked were early career (24-26), mid-career (34-36) and late career (44-46).
“In 2002, comparing the retirement balance of men and women, the youngest cohort had an average gender gap of $1142 in 2002 while the oldest group had $21,889,” Dr Moulang said.
“When measured again in 2011-12, this gap had widened to $18,608 and $81,769 respectively – figures that are most alarming.
“We found that the young cohorts experienced more gaps in their contributions as they are more likely to be establishing their family around this time, where the more stable 44-46 year olds did not have as many gaps.
“At 24-26, generally around the time of one’s first professional job, graduate employment rates are high for women but their salaries are lower. This has a significant long-term impact on women’s superannuation balances from which they cannot recover.”
According to Dr Moulang, a possible solution to this ongoing gender-based fiscal discrimination is to continue paying women’s superannuation contributions during employment gaps, like maternity leave.
“Our study provides clear evidence of the Australian labour market generating a statistically significant economic disadvantage for women over time,” she said. “Much of the recent response to gender inequalities in pension savings has been to encourage women to save more. This is an inadequate response that will not bridge the gap revealed here.