Why auto-enrolment can be a double-edged sword for women's pensions

While the closure of the gender pension gap is within reach, it still requires co-ordinated interventions across departments, organisations, policymakers, and financial institutions

'Auto-enrolment is going to be so useful as a national initiative, but it is not going to close the gap. Proactive engagement is going to be key.'

Ireland’s gender pay gap is a well-documented phenomenon. The Central Statistics Office’s (CSO) latest report from 2022 put the gap at 9.6%, with mean earnings for males totalling €27.73 with 35.7 mean paid weekly hours, while mean earnings for females were €25.06 with 30.1 mean paid weekly hours.

At the extreme end of the spectrum, sectors such as finance, insurance, and real estate saw the gap widen to almost 25%, according to CSO figures, with education on the other end seeing a more modest gap of 2.7%.