Financial Risk Report Part 4: No sign of equality Women’s retirement funding

3 min readSep 15, 2016

The number of people intending to retire in the next 12 months is estimated at 415,000, a 27% increase on the level seen in 2008 when it was 327,000.

Men represent 228,000 and women 187,000.

But there is no sign of equality in women’s retirement funding according to Roy Morgan’s Spotlight on Financial Risk report.

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Here are some of their findings…

Since 2008 there has been a major change in the gender composition of the workforce with more female participation.

Currently, 65% of males 14+ are employed, down 2.8% points from 2008, while almost 55% of females are now employed , up 2.% points since 2008.

However, over the last eight years both genders saw their biggest gains in part time work.

Retirement levels are highest for females with 20.5% compared to males on 17.9%.

Higher part-time work and retirement levels for females reduce the adequacy of their retirement funding, a topic that receives a great deal of attention.

Males still have much higher full-time participation rates then females (50% vs. 27.7%).

Analysis of superannuation balances of females and males over the last eight years shows:

a) Superannuation balances have increased for both women and men; [adrotate group=”16"]

b) Female balances are still substantially lower than for men — 63% of the male average;

c) They are making progress. 63% of male average is up on the 55% of male average reported in 2008. However, not the entire story.

For superannuation of intending retirees the female average balance is $149K or 63.1% of the male average of $236K.

The gap has closed considerably since 2008 when the female balance was only $79K which was equivalent to only 55.2% of the average male superannuation balance.

A great deal of publicity has been given to this issue and it has obviously increased awareness and effort to improve retirement funding for women.

But in the broader issue of retirement funding total average net funding levels for women intending to retire in the next 12 months, the figure is $228K or 66.9% of the male equivalent of $341K.

No real progress has been made to catch up to males since 2008 when it was 66.4%.