Women battle low confidence in retirement

Women have low confidence in retirement and action is needed to help them improve their retirement outcomes, according to the survey from the Qantas Super CSBA Retirement Confidence Index.​

Lack of confidence stems from the fact that women, on average, retire with balances that are a little over half of those of men, ASFA’s chief executive, Martin Fahy, said.

Fahy said there was a need for structural policy reform that could help protect the economic security of women in retirement and ensure women’s standards of living in retirement improved.

“Today, around 50 per cent of women retire with a very low superannuation balance under $50,000, compared with 33 per cent of men. Unless we take active steps to fix this problem, confidence will remain low,” Fahy said.

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 ASFA recommended the following steps:

• Paying superannuation guarantee on paid parental leave and other income replacement payments (such as salary continuance and worker’s compensation);
• Removing the $450-a-month threshold for superannuation guarantee;
• Maintaining the low income superannuation tax offset (LISTO) that provided tax refunds and would make superannuation fairer for those on low incomes; and
• Enabling employers top contribute more for women without being considered to have breached anti-discrimination legislation.