Men are saving more into their pension than women
The pension savings gap currently favours men, with reasons including the fact that women often leave the workforce to raise families.
The pension savings gap currently favours men, mainly due to women taking extended periods of time out from the workforce to start and raise their families.
A survey of over 130 financial advisors nationwide, undertaken by leading pension trustees, Independent Trustee Company (ITC), cited the top five reasons women are saving less into their pensions than men are:
Women often leave the workforce to raise families (60% of financial experts reported this to be the case).
Men earn more money than women (48%).
Men take a more active role in financial planning (28%).
Men are more likely to think long-term when it comes to financial planning (17%).
Men are more interested in pensions than women (15%).
When compared with the same survey run by ITC last year, the findings suggest that there has been some narrowing of the gender pension gap, with twice as many advisors now believing that men are saving the same amount into their pensions as women, 10% in 2025 versus 5% in 2024.
Glenn Gaughran, head of business development with ITC, said: “While the over-riding message from this research is that women still lag significantly behind men when it comes to their pension savings, encouragingly, the results suggest that some progress is being made and that the gender pension gap is narrowing.
"Given that women in Ireland typically live longer than men, and that there has been a substantial increase in recent years in the number of female retirees, the gender pension gap is hugely concerning, and this gap must be bridged.”
He added that despite progress made in recent years, women have long faced challenges in building their pension savings, and these challenges are well-documented.
“Women often earn less than men and as a result, don't have as much to save into their pension as their male counterparts. Wages in some of the job sectors traditionally dominated by women are often low. In addition, mothers often take time out of the workforce – or move to shorter working weeks – to look after children. Women are also three times as likely as men to work part-time.”
Industry professionals cite the primary driver of the pension gender gap as the interruption in women's work history, often due to caregiving responsibilities such as raising children or tending to elderly relatives.
These breaks in employment result in lower earnings and fewer opportunities to contribute to pension plans.
“There is a myriad of factors at play here for some, being at home with their children, particularly in the early years is important, and for many others, the lack of affordable and/or available childcare means that women often have no real choice but to leave full-time positions or instead settle for part-time roles so as that they can look after their children. All of this culminates in a situation whereby women lose out on job promotions, salary rises, and pension contributions are stalled or stopped altogether.”
Other headline findings from the ITC survey reveal that:
Over half (53%) of financial advisers say that men are saving “way more” into their pension than their female counterparts.
Only a minority (4%) of advisers believe that the reason men save more into their pensions than women is because men have a better understanding of pensions than women do.
There has been an increase in the number of advisers who believe that one of the reasons women are falling behind on their pension savings is that men earn more than women (48% in 2025 versus 40% in 2024).
There has been a slight increase in the number of experts who believe that time out of the workforce to raise families is one of the reasons women are falling behind on their pension savings (60% in 2025 versus 57% in 2024).
Mr Gaughran concluded: “The gender pension gap in Ireland is 35pc, according to the latest official figures. This must be addressed; otherwise, many women could struggle to make ends meet in retirement, find it difficult to fund medical care when they most need it, or simply find their lifestyle in retirement is not as comfortable as they had hoped.
"Addressing the gender pay gap is crucial, not only for promoting gender equality but also for ensuring women’s long-term financial well-being.”
