Published on:
08 March 2024
In this blog post for International Women’s Day, Money and Pensions Service (MaPS) Scotland Manager and Gender Policy Lead for the UK Strategy for Financial Wellbeing, Allison Barnes, and Head of Money and Pensions Policy, Jackie Spencer, discuss why women are less likely to save money on a regular basis or have a financial plan for retirement.
Today is International Women's Day and the theme for 2024 is ‘inspire inclusion’. To help inspire inclusion and forge women's economic empowerment, we are delving into the subject of the gender savings and pension gap.
In January 2021, the UK Adult Financial Wellbeing Survey, conducted for MaPS by Critical Research, found that women are faring less well than men on almost all key financial wellbeing measures. It’s important to note that the key drivers for lower levels of financial wellbeing among women are interconnected with the structural gender inequalities that exist in wider society.
With this in mind, it’s clear that this topic is too big for a single blog post to tackle. However, we will discuss some of the areas that employers can consider to help address these issues.
MaPS research (1) shows us that in the UK, women and men have similar age and ethnicity profiles. However, differences start to emerge when we look at factors such as employment and income, financial resilience, and overall financial wellbeing.
We know that women are less likely to save on a regular basis than men. The UK Adult Financial Wellbeing Survey shows that just over half (54%) of women report being able to save every/most months. This is significantly lower than the figure for men, which is closer to three in five (59%). The survey also found that women are less likely to have a plan for their money in retirement (60% of women compared to 44% of men) and are less likely to say they understand enough about pensions to be able to make effective decisions about saving for retirement (41% of women compared to 57% of men).
There are many reasons why these gaps exist. This can include:
MaPS offer a range of free and impartial expertise, support and resources that could help employers, such as:
Our local partnerships team can also offer free support and practical ways to help you build financial wellbeing across your organisation.
Our consumer-facing service, MoneyHelper, provides free and impartial money and pensions guidance for people across the UK. There’s a wide range of information and resources available to help you support your workforce, including: