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The Gender Pay Gap and Pensions That Women (don’t) Get

The gender pay gap is really in the news at the moment.  It is appalling that it hasn’t come to the fore before now – we have had legislation to make it illegal to pay women a lower salary than men for the same work for many decades.

One of the things that is really shocking is that it isn’t just that you are disadvantaged in the job that you have now when your employer fails to pay you equally.  You are also disadvantaged as you get older.   This is because of the knock-on effect that your lower salary will have on your pension contributions and on your available income in retirement.

Zurich Insurance built a workplace savings barometer last year to show the differences in male and female savings for pensions (you can find it here; https://www.zurich.co.uk/en/about-us/media-centre/life-news/2017/47000-shortfall-in-employer-pension-contributions-for-women)

Make sure that you ask your male colleagues about their salaries and what they are getting.  The government made it legal for you to do so if you are checking on whether you are paid equally!!  Make sure you don’t just leave it – it will otherwise have repercussions into retirement for you!!