U.K. retirement funds, consultants and money managers are gearing up to jointly tackle retirement inequality.

Starting with the gender pension gap — in which males hold vastly more savings than women — a newly formed coalition is looking to develop new planning tools and guidance for plan participants.

The Pensions Equity Group, a collaboration of retirement industry professionals, is working to help achieve better equality of retirement savings by developing ways to consistently measure retirement inequalities and potentially press for needed policy reforms. The group wants to share best practice approaches to help employers address inequalities and develop planning tools to help workers increase savings. Women who were eligible for automatic enrollment into U.K. defined contribution plans had about 32% less in terms of retirement savings than male workers in the U.K. between 2018 and 2020, according to June 5 data by Department for Work and Pensions.

Working alongside the group, executives from more than 20 partners, including leading asset managers, law firms, industry groups and retirement plans, are joining forces with the initiative.

“We are in the privileged position of being able to carry out research and analysis with our members to understand what might work in this space, and so contribute to the wider cross-industry efforts covered by this project,” said a spokesman for the £90.8 billion ($113 billion) Universities Superannuation Scheme, London, which is participating in the effort. “We have a particular interest in if and how we are empowering members and building their confidence in making decisions about their pension.”

Joanne Segars, chairwoman of trustees at NOW: Pensions, added in an emailed comment: “Too many women are locked out of the auto-enrollment system, unable to earn enough to put money aside for later life and, as a result, find themselves on the wrong side of a growing pension savings gap.”

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