Topic overview: gender

• Women experience worse financial wellbeing than men and, across socio-economic groups, have less money.
• Women have lower financial confidence than men, despite similar levels of financial capability.
• Structural gender inequalities – especially earnings gaps – drive women’s lower financial wellbeing and possible their lower financial confidence.
• To improve women’s financial wellbeing, the structural inequalities influencing the financial outcomes they experience need to be tackled.

Gender is a cross-cutting theme for the five Agendas for change set out in our UK strategy for financial wellbeing 2020-2030. A core priority is developing approaches that engage women and men in different ways to make financial wellbeing support more inclusive.

Poor financial wellbeing harms mental and physical health, relationships and productivity. Women have poorer financial wellbeing than men, affecting all aspects of their financial wellbeing, and reflecting disadvantages accumulated across their lives. 

Women experience lower financial wellbeing than men. Women are less satisfied with their financial situation and have lower financial resilience: they are less likely to have savings, more likely to have under £1,000 saved, are more likely to prioritise emergency savings and far less likely to invest and are more likely to struggle with an unexpected £300 cost. Lower rates of regular saving contribute to this. Women are slightly more likely to struggle with bills and credit commitments, though less likely to hold loans or rely on credit for essentials.

The largest gaps relate to pensions. Around three in five women feel they lack the knowledge about pensions to make retirement decisions, compared with just over two in five men. Similar proportions of men and women lack a retirement plan, a pattern consistent over time.

Regardless of socio-economic background, women have less money.

Their earnings average under 70% of men’s. They hold an average of 21% less wealth than men, rising to 42% by age 64. This means women are at greater risk of falling below minimum living standards. 

Women are over‑represented among single parents and face higher unemployment and greater challenges balancing work and childcare. Even in two parent‑families, mothers’ employment rates are around 20% lower than fathers’, and women save significantly less. Holding multiple jobs is most common among young women (16-29) and far more common than official data suggests. 

Women are also over‑represented in financially vulnerable groups, including carers and those experiencing poor mental health. Domestic and economic abuse further restricts access to resources and can involve coerced debt. Disabled women have particularly low financial wellbeing.

Structural gender inequalities in wider society help explain these outcomes, with differences in earnings playing a key role. Women are more likely to work in lower paid sectors, less likely to negotiate pay, and more likely to be on zero-hour contracts, which reduce income stability and pension entitlements. Holding multiple jobs is also strongly linked to this, with young women increasingly likely to seek out multiple jobs to secure enough working hours and income. 

Lower pay, career breaks, caring responsibilities and health-related interruptions (eg menopause) also make it harder for women to build savings and pensions. Life events such as relationship breakdown or job loss hit women’s finances harder, and their savings recover more slowly. Short breaks from investing lead to large, long-term losses for women. 

With a financial system that is designed around linear career paths that are more typical for men, these factors all reduce pension contributions and compound the wealth penalties women expereince. 

Financial stress disproportionately affects women at work. Holding multiple jobs contributes to lower overall life satisfaction, and young women report significantly poorer job-related mental wellbeing than young men, regardless of whether they hold one job or several.

Inconsistent employment shapes how women think about pension saving. Carers often prioritise budgets around day-to-day family needs, favouring short‑term savings or non‑financial assets over pensions.

Women also tend to have lower financial confidence than men in managing money and choosing products, and in meeting their long-term financial goals. They are also slightly less likely to talk about money, influenced by stigma, shame and fear of burdening others. This can make financial difficulties less visible and delay seeking help. Women are less likely to have confidence in their financial future than men. Rather than inherent gender differences, these could also be the product of contexts and structural inequalities. 

Stereotypes and industry practice reinforce disengagement. Women often find wealth management unwelcoming, seek advice less often, and are offered lower‑risk products; patterns linked to adviser bias as well as preference.

Some differences exist, including slightly lower levels of numeracy and financial literacy among women, and more difficulty assessing future returns. However, these patterns are more likely to reflect wider structural inequalities and differences in confidence, not gender on its own. Because women are more exposed to financial precarity, they are more likely to experience the cognitive load, reduced executive functioning, and impaired decision‑making associated with a ‘scarcity mindset’. 

Women often score well on planning and budgeting and are more likely to manage household finances. Yet this does not always translate into better financial wellbeing: women are around twice as likely as men to worry about day‑to‑day costs and more likely to experience frequent money worries.

Some links with lower numeracy, financial literacy and skills have been found. Women tend to score lower on assessing the probability of future returns on savings, which is likely to be a result of structural disadvantages and lower overall confidence.

Research has shown some differences in the way men and women approach numeracy and probability assessment, but structural factors and confidence are likely to explain these patterns. Women often score well on planning and budgeting and are more likely to manage household finances. Yet capability does not translate into wellbeing: women are twice as likely as men to worry about day‑to‑day costs.

Reducing gender inequalities in financial wellbeing requires addressing structural drivers, across early years, working life and retirement. Increasing women’s participation in the labour market, and supporting parents to stay in work could boost productivity; estimates suggest UK gross domestic product could rise by up to 10% by 2030 (from 2015).

Policy reform is essential to close the pensions gap, though other interventions can help now. Earlier saving, targeted guidance and accessible products can narrow the gap. Providing targeted information during parental leave and at key life moments can support people to recover from time out of work.

Women invest less than men due to lower capital, often due to confidence and stereotyping. Programmes should demystify investing, offer accessible education and challenge adviser practices that may steer women toward lower‑risk options.

Financial advice significantly improves women’s financial security and workplace outcomes. Interventions should build on familiar financial issues women often have to prioritise – planning, budgeting and household financial control – and address gendered stereotypes. 

Programme design should apply a gender lens and tailor communication to fit. 

We still do not fully understand how structural factors affecting women’s financial wellbeing interact with the complex factors shaping financial decision‑making, particularly outside of retirement saving. More research is needed on how adviser assumptions shape women’s financial choices, how best to address the gender pay gap, and which interventions most effectively reduce the pensions gap.

Key sources informing this overview are:

• Securing the financial future of the next generation - CII (2018) 
• UK adult financial wellbeing survey 2021 future focus report - Money and Pensions Service (2022) 
•  UK adult financial wellbeing survey 2021 gender report - Money and Pensions Service (2023) 
• MoneyView 2025 - Money and Pensions Service (2025) 
• Understanding the gender pensions gap - PPI (2019) 

You can also see:

• our full list of topic overviews, covering a range of themes related to financial wellbeing 
• our financial wellbeing evidence hub, a database of research and evidence.