And most women feel anxious when they think about retirement, according to a survey commissioned by Aviva Life and Pensions ahead of International Women\u2019s Day on Sunday.<\/p>\n
Some 65pc of working women don\u2019t know the tax benefits available under a private pension.<\/p>\n
This is a higher proportion than for men, where 44pc were unaware of the tax relief for investing in a pension, according to research of 255 adults aged over 50 by Red C Research and Marketing for Aviva.<\/p>\n
People who put money into a pension get income tax relief on the contributions at their highest marginal rate, which is up to 40pc.<\/p>\n
This means that if someone is on the 40pc income tax rate, every \u20ac100 contribution only costs them \u20ac60. Standard rate taxpayers receive 20pc relief.<\/p>\n
There is no PRSI or USC relief. Relief is capped by age-related percentages of earnings.<\/p>\n
Just over half of women in the survey said they feel anxious when they think about coming to the end of paid work.<\/p>\n
Some 58pc of female respondents said they do not know what their pension is invested in, compared with 39pc of men.<\/p>\n
Women are more likely to face barriers to starting or continuing pension saving, the research found.<\/p>\n
These include the fact that large numbers of them work part-time, and many provide unpaid care.<\/p>\n
Aviva estimates a national gender pension gap of 31pc, meaning women would need to work 10 extra years to match men\u2019s retirement savings<\/p>\n
The modelling by Aviva shows that women typically earn less over their working lives, start pensions later and take more career breaks.<\/p>\n
The findings reveal four interconnected gaps that leave women more financially exposed as they approach retirement: a gender pension gap, a knowledge gap, an advice gap, and a confidence gap, Aviva said.<\/p>\n
According to the study, women begin their pensions later.<\/p>\n
They are also almost twice as likely to delay saving until 50 or older.<\/p>\n
Over a working life, this leads to significantly less time for their savings to grow, a core driver of the 31pc gap.<\/p>\n
Awareness of retirement income products such as Approved Retirement Funds (ARFs) and annuities is also lower among women. This limits informed decision making, Aviva said.<\/p>\n
Confidence plays a decisive role in retirement outcomes.<\/p>\n
Only 29pc of women feel confident about making investment decisions, compared with 53pc of men, the survey found.<\/p>\n
It also found that more women than men have never calculated how many paydays they have left until retirement.<\/p>\n
Head of corporate distribution at Aviva Life and Pensions Ireland Clair Carroll said: \u201cThis research highlights four interconnected gaps putting women at a financial disadvantage as they approach retirement \u2013 pension behaviours, knowledge, advice and confidence.\u201d<\/p>\n
She said many women haven\u2019t calculated how many paydays they have left, and it\u2019s hard to feel confident about the income their pension will provide if you don\u2019t know what you have, how it\u2019s invested, or what options are available to you when you retire.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"And most women feel anxious when they think about retirement, according to a survey commissioned by Aviva Life…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":316080,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[138,29869,246,29870,111,139,69,244,245],"class_list":{"0":"post-316079","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-personal-finance","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-charlie-weston","10":"tag-finance","11":"tag-money-experts","12":"tag-new-zealand","13":"tag-newzealand","14":"tag-nz","15":"tag-personal-finance","16":"tag-personalfinance"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/316079","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=316079"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/316079\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/316080"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=316079"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=316079"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=316079"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}