By Dr David Knox, Michael Rice and Richard Dunn

Over the last twenty years, there has been increasing interest in the reasons for the gap between the average male and female retirement balances. This gap, known as the gender pension gap1, is characterised by the fact that, on average, women tend to live on a lower income in retirement than men. It is usually measured by combining all sources of retirement income, whether public or private, pay-as-you-go or funded.

In this paper we consider the gender pension gap in the context of the debate on the inequality between genders and an increasing awareness of the need to improve the economic security of women. Our review is conducted with consideration given to the global context as the gap is an issue which transcends geographical boundaries, though it does vary between countries.

This paper is broken into the following sections:

▪ A global perspective, in which we analyse the gender pension gap from an international perspective,
with a mind to assessing Australia’s relative status and identifying local areas of strength and
weakness.
▪ Causes of the gender pension gap, in which we provide a summary of the drivers of inequality, both
in Australia and overseas.
▪ Rising voices in Australia, which canvases past work done in Australia on the gender pension gap.
▪ Status of inequality in Australia, in which we investigate the status-quo of inequality in Australia and
current trends in the level of inequality.
▪ Conclusions and Recommendations, in which we bring together our results and make several
suggestions to improve the level of equality in the Australian retirement savings system.

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