The Retirement Income Review’s terms of reference needs to include women’s outcomes, Women in Super (WIS) believes.
WIS chair, Cate Wood, said the report needed to look at how policy settings along with the structural, economic, social, and demographic drivers were leaving increasing numbers of women without economic security in retirement.
“There is a crisis in women’s retirement happening all around us,” Wood said. “Single retired women are the fastest-growing group of people becoming homeless in this country.
“The rate of poverty for retired women also continues to increase, which is unsurprising given women retire on average with just over half the superannuation savings of men.”
The terms of reference were published last month by Treasurer Josh Frydenberg and cover how the retirement income system supports retired Australians, the role of each pillar in supporting Australians, distributional impacts across the population and the impact of current policy settings on public finance.
The research house has offered a silver lining after super fund returns saw the end of a five-month streak last month.
A survey of almost 6,000 fund members has identified weakening retirement confidence, particularly among those under 55 years of age, signalling an opportunity for super funds to better engage with members on their retirement journey.
The funds have confirmed the signing of a successor fund transfer deed, moving closer to creating a new $29 billion entity.
A number of measures, including super on Paid Parental Leave, funding to recover unpaid super, and frameworks to encourage investment in the energy transition, have been welcomed by the superannuation industry.
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