Breaking the gender bias in retirement

Undoubtedly there is a bias against women when it comes to retirement. Old-age poverty is more pronounced among women who tend to live longer. The reasons remain the same over the past few years; truncated careers for purposes of childbirth, family care and the likes, avoidance of risk, unwillingness to save and invest, financial illiteracy, low pay etc.

The Mercer Global Pension index in its 2021 report categorized these reasons into Socio-cultural, Employment and Pension Design issues and recommended solutions for the government, employers and the pension industry as reproduced below:

Employers are to:

• Encourage more flexible workplaces which will enable individuals to have more flexible working hours.

• Remove the range of distinctions that exist between part-time and full-time employees.

• Ensure that parental leave may be taken by either parent.

• Ensure improved gender balance at all levels within an organization.

Pension industry should:

• Remove all eligibility restrictions for individuals to join employment-related pension arrangements. (this is not applicable in our jurisdiction)

Such restrictions may be related to their level of income, the number of hours worked or a required period of service.

• Introduce pension credits for carers so that those who are caring for young children or aging relatives are not penalized in their retirement years.

• Remove any gender-based annuity rates which, after all, do not exist in defined benefit pension schemes.

• Require all pensions to have some form of indexation, even if it is not at the full inflation rate.

• Improve their forms of communication and recognize that both men and women are decision-makers in respect of pensions.

• Introduce publicly available models and calculators to show the impact of different working arrangements and career gaps on future retirement pensions.

Governments should:

• Provide affordable quality childcare which is likely to encourage women to return to the workforce earlier.

• Provide greater flexibility for pension contributions recognizing that employment patterns over a working career can vary considerably. This flexibility should include mechanisms for individuals to “catch up” in respect of their pension contributions following periods out of the workforce due to caring, illness or unemployment.

• Require that pension contributions continue during periods of paid parental leave and carers leave.

• Permit pension contributions into the pension account of a spouse or partner.

• Ensure that pension rights accrued during a partnership are taken into account on divorce or separation.

• Ensure that there is no difference in the retirement ages for men and women.

To drive these suggestions home, there is the need to include an important group which is missing in this report - women, particularly so because, in our part of the world, a good majority of women are in the informal sector and are not likely to be affected by actions of employers and governments in breaking this bias.

How do we #breakthe bias as women? Women must rise up and own their future, their pension savings, their old age, and more. The narratives always have it that women are risk-averse, they are less likely to talk about finances, they are unable to manage their finances well etc. As a retirement advisor, I can attest to the education efforts being made by the pension industry in Ghana, while there is more to be done on this front, the key ingredient is the willingness of women to seek solutions, make time to learn about retirement and be interested in ending old-age poverty.

As a woman, I can appreciate that the socio-cultural odds may still be against us, the topic of pension may remain unattractive for us but the reality of old age poverty stares us in the face and it is just a matter of time before we will experience these harsh realities if we don't take action today.

The theme for this year's International Women's Day is striking, it is one that should lead us to ourselves for solutions to our problems. Let's rise as women to embrace financial literacy and retirement education in our markets, churches, mosques, associations, and all social groups and take a further step to plan and invest for our retirement.