Over half of women say their pension isn’t enough to be financially independent

A new report has revealed that half of women aged 45+ say that they will need to keep working beyond retirement age in order to make ends meet.

The ‘Gendered Ageism’ report from Working Wise also shows that 53% of the 1,356 45+ women questioned admit that their pension won’t be enough for them to be financially independent.

For many women, this could be due to ‘caring responsibilities’, such as having and looking after children. Of those surveyed, 83% of respondents have worked part-time for at least one year of their career, and 27% worked part-time for over a decade.

The data shows that 71% of women felt that going part-time or taking a career break was the reason behind reducing their pension payments, additionally, 64% of respondents shared that due to a career break or reduced hours, they have previously stopped their pension payments altogether.

Gillian Nissim, Founder at workingwise.co.uk, said, “The gender pension gap is 37.9% which is startling until you see the results of this report which reveals that from the moment women have caring responsibilities, their pensions start to come crashing down. Women are more likely to have ongoing caring responsibilities that mean they will reduce their hours, work part-time or require flexible working and it is these necessities that are causing women to reduce or even stop their pension payments, these career decisions are then coming back to haunt women’s pensions in later life.

“We need to increase the support that women have when it comes to truly understanding their pension savings, and on top of this, we need to start to make changes in the workplace that will make a dent on the 37.9% deficit that looms over women as they approach retirement. That over 50% of women will need to keep working beyond requirement is a huge wake-up call to the true impact that this pensions gap is having on women’s lives.”

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