SUPM042 Super savings for women (560 words)

There’s an acknowledged disparity between men’s and women’s retirement savings. This article discusses the reasons and explains how planning and strategy can help bridge the gap and provide retirement security for women.

Ask any woman juggling career, home and family and she’ll tell you it’s a hard slog. Yet as retirement looms, dreams of enjoying the rewards of all that work are shattered as the retirement savings don’t support the vision.

According to an inquiry into Women’s Economic Security in Retirement entitled “A husband is not a retirement plan: Achieving economic security for women in retirement”, on average, women retire with approximately half the retirement savings as men. The inquiry also found that the majority of Australians on the age pension are women. Of that number, the majority are single, meaning that these women are struggling alone on an income that the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) defines as poverty.

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