The gender divide in retirement confidence
1 February 2024
Men are generally more assured about their prospects for a comfortable retirement, the findings from our inaugural Retirement Confidence Index suggests.
So, what‘s making women cautious about their financial futures? And are we right to be so?
There’s still a lot of work needed to improve overall pension awareness levels. To move the dial further we’ll need to see greater collaboration across the industry to effect positive change.
The gender pension gap is also something we need to get to grips with and attempt to close. According to the most recent data (2018 to 2020) this stands at 35% for private pensions.
It’s not likely to happen overnight. But progress is being made.
Attitude to risk, emotional resilience and identifying investment opportunities are also factors which should also be considered when thinking about retirement confidence. These traits can present differently from person to person.
There are plenty of studies out there which suggest women are more risk-averse when it comes to investing. This could result in lower returns over a sustained period.
Can more be done to persuade women to be less risk adverse without moving to a reckless mindset? Most definitely. Finding out why we feel the way we do is an important place to start. Then we can build from that.
It’ll be interesting to see how confidence levels change over time when we repeat the research in the years ahead.
The full article was first published by Professional Adviser. View it here.
