19 Oct 2020

Report: Filling the gaps: Nest women and their pensions

Auto enrolment has revolutionised the UK’s saving landscape. But while more women than ever are saving into workplace pensions, women still end up with less pension income than men – currently 40% less than men on average when they retire. The gap is even greater for women from an ethnic minority background.

Given the extra challenges that women face in saving for retirement, the Filling the gap report from Nest includes findings from its female members, with whom it discussed these issues, as well as providing insight into how the COVID-19 pandemic has affected its female savers.

Key findings

With Nest, women’s pension contributions and pot balances fall short of men’s by an average of £5,300.
Women also have average earnings of £424 less than men, while their yearly auto-enrolment contributions are an average of £1,677 – for men the average is £2,282.
73% of women feel that COVID-19 will affect their personal finances, with 26% saying it will affect their finances ‘a great deal’ in the longer term, versus 21% of men.
14% of women have been forced to draw on savings or run into debt to pay bills, similar to men (18%).
However, 49% of women are currently saving at least some money.
61% of women also expect the pandemic to have some impact on their pensions saving.

The report, compiled by Nest, outlines how employers, savers, pension providers and government can work together to ‘build back better’ and to close the pensions gender gap.