February 2021

US. Women’s Retirement Savings Especially Affected by the Pandemic

By Amanda Umpierrez The pandemic has aggravated financial insecurity for millions of American workers, but data shows it’s affected women more severely than men. A study by Nationwide found that among 297 women with investable assets of $100,000 or more, 72% believe the pandemic had a negative impact on their retirement savings. Additionally, women listed losses from the pandemic as their top financial concern last year. Other worries involved protecting assets, health care costs and longevity risk during retirement. “With women, when...

January 2021

US. Pandemic Widens Retirement Planning Gender Gap

The pandemic has widened the gender gap for retirement planning, and women investors are less optimistic, more concerned and less prepared to protect assets than their male counterparts, according to a new survey. “Women are concerned about the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on their finances and the resulting uncertainty can make planning for the future — and their retirement — more difficult,” Ann Bair, senior vice president of marketing for Nationwide Financial, said in a statement about the...

November 2020

With more childcare and domestic work, the pandemic poses a ‘real danger’ to women’s progress, UN finds

Since the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, women have been bearing the brunt of extra childcare duties and unpaid domestic work, a study by the United Nations (UN) has found. Women in a number of countries around the world have been spending around 31 hours on average a week on childcare, the study by the UN’s gender equality body, UN Women, found. This was an average 5.2 hours a week more than pre-pandemic time spent on childcare,...

South Africa. The scary facts about the gender pension gap

Echoing concerns raised by the World Economic Forum earlier this year, 10X Investments’ new South African Retirement Reality Report adds more data showing this worrying trend of women falling further behind men. 10X’s third annual Retirement Reality Report (RRR20) shows that the retirement savings gap between the genders has grown in the last year, not only because the gender pay gap has widened, but because many women continue to reject the best option they have for narrowing the gap,...

September 2020

UK. Pensions Gender Gap: How Can We Fight Future Financial Shortfall of Women

Women are being urged to think about their long term savings as research reveals almost five million females in the UK over the age of 50 think they won't have enough to live on in retirement. The figures are from a report – Finances after 50 – published by financial services provider SunLife. It comes as a group of women recently failed in a high court appeal to claim compensation for lost State pension income as a result of...

Gender Gap in Pension Income: Cross-Country Analysis and Role of Gender Attitudes

By Anna Veremchuk, University of Tartu The aim of this paper is to study the gender pension gap in Europe based on the newest EU-SILC data from the 2018 wave. The contribution of the paper is twofold. First, it provides evidence on factors shaping the gender pension gap in a large number of EU countries. Second, it analyses the relationship between the pension gap and: (1) the coverage of occupational (second pillar) pensions and (2) gender attitudes. The main factor contributing to gender...

Many Chinese women unprepared for retirement risk: survey

There is not enough awareness amongst Chinese woman concerning risks associated with retirement, a new study finds. The first retirement risks management white paper focusing on women, done by Manulife-Sinochem with the Fudan Development Institute, found less than half (47.4 percent) of those interviewed said they have pension insurance policies. In terms of the choice of protection, interviewees were generally worried about large medical expenditures, accessibility to care services, accidents and insufficient income. China’s population is aging – a...

August 2020

UK. How COVID-19 will affect women’s pensions in the long term

It is clear that the pandemic is more than just a health crisis, but an economic one too. Since the lockdown was introduced in March, millions of people have been furloughed or made redundant. And not only is the financial fallout of coronavirus affecting women more severely than men, it will continue to impact their savings for years to come. Prior to the virus, women only saved a third of the amount that men do by the time they...

How to Improve Women’s Retirement Savings: Brookings

Women get the short end of the stick when it comes to retirement. It starts with differences in earnings and, thus, less money to save for retirement. But other factors come into play: They are more likely to leave the workforce to care for children or parents, and they live longer. But a Brookings Gender Series paper recommends several policy changes that could address these issues. “Public policies that aim to boost women’s status in retirement should focus on...

July 2020

Women Working Longer: Increased Employment at Older Ages

By Claudia Goldin, Lawrence F. Katz Today, more American women than ever before stay in the workforce into their sixties and seventies. This trend emerged in the 1980s, and has persisted during the past three decades, despite substantial changes in macroeconomic conditions. Why is this so? Today’s older American women work full-time jobs at greater rates than women in other developed countries. In Women Working Longer, editors...