Insuring Women’s Futures, a CII-led initiative that looked at ways to improve female financial resilience, has revealed what action “must be taken to end the gender pension gap and make sure women don’t end up poorer in retirement than their mother and grandmother’s generations”.
 
Insuring Women’s Futures stated the following action is needed:
 
1) Auto-enrolment earnings eligibility limits should be reduced and Net Pay Schemes should be amended to provide tax relief for low earners.
 
2) Shared parental leave rights and pay should be equalised. Too many women are currently suffering a pension penalty because they take on the bulk of family care.
 
3) Spousal consent should be required in relation to defined benefit transfers to ensure dependents are engaged in the decision.

4) The law should be changed to make pensions sharing the default position. Pension scheme rules should be changed to allow an ex-spouse to continue to participate.
 
5) To improve access to advice, the government should allow the Pensions Advice Allowance to be used for divorce.
 
6) Pensions valuations should be simplified through standardisation and made more meaningful to support longer term decision-making.
 
7) Employers should be required to include employer pension contributions as part of gender pay gap reporting and to disclose gender pension contribution gaps to inform improvements to pension scheme design, participation and pensions wellbeing in the workplace
 
8) Where employees are changing working arrangements, employers should prompt staff to consider the impact on their financial future.

Jane Portas, author of the ‘manifesto’ and co-founder of the Insuring Women’s Futures initiative, said: “More needs to be done to improve pensions equality: to allow all women access to pensions, to support women to attain an adequate pension reflecting their whole contribution to our society and to allow women to enjoy fair and equal outcomes when relationships break down.”
 
Keith Richards, chief executive of the Personal Finance Society, said: “Women’s pensions rights need to be improved to make sure they don’t end up impoverished in retirement.
 
“While the majority who benefit from active professional advice will have been empowered and helped to address their various life-stage goals and objectives, thereby avoiding the ‘pitfalls and perils’ highlighted by the IWF report, we will be updating our ‘good practice’ guides to include the issues more relative for women.
 
“The Personal Finance Society will also engage with policymakers to push for changes to auto-enrolment and pension freedom rules to improve financial outcomes for women.”