The basic gender pension gap could be as much as £108,130 for single women when considering life expectancy, increasing to £186,120 for women who are married or in a relationship, analysis from More2Life has found.

The research showed that men expect to receive, or already receive, around £8,460 more than their partners per year in retirement, with men aged 54-64 expecting to receive a gross income of around £5,964 higher than a female partner when they stop working.

Single men can also expect to receive higher retirement incomes, with those over the age of 55 receiving around £3,750 more a year than single women of the same age.

The report explained that whilst the majority of both men (76 per cent) and women (73 per cent) over 54 expect to rely on their state pension to fund retirement, men are more likely to depend on private sources of income.

In particular, nearly half (47 per cent) of men said that their income comes or will come from a final salary or defined benefit (DB) workplace pension, compared to just 37 per cent of women.

In addition to this, it found that whilst half of men reported having independent pension wealth, this fell to just 39 per cent amongst women.

Commenting on the findings, More2Life chief executive officer, Dave Harris, said: “At a time when there has been significant disruption to many people’s retirement savings, we need collaboration from industry and Government to encourage people to engage with long-term financial planning.

“While our findings show that men and women are broadly consistent when it comes to state pension engagement, there is a clear disparity between the genders when it comes to utilising alternative retirement income sources.

“Nowadays, people approaching later life often need to fund a longer and more active retirement than their parents, but with smaller pensions.

“As such, it’s crucial for current and future retirees to consider how assets such as property could help them form a more holistic financial plan for their later years."

The findings follow recent research from Scottish Widows, which showed that whilst the gender pension gap had seen record progress, women saving adequately on the median wage would still need to work past age 100 in order to match men's pension savings.

The Work and Pensions Committee has also recently confirmed that the third part of its inquiry into pension freedoms and the protection of pension savers will asses the gender pensions gap, as well as issues around auto-enrolment and self-employed pension savings.

Share Story: