100 signatures reached
To: UK Government
End the Gender Pension Gap for public sector women
Every year the average retired woman earns £7,600 less than the average retired man. This is the Gender Pension Gap and sits at 36.5% according to research from Prospect union - more than double the Gender Pay Gap!
The Gender Pension Gap is condemning millions of women to financial insecurity in retirement. It needs to end.
Part of the solution is to tackle pay discrimination. But even if we eliminate that entirely, there is structural unfairness built into the pension system itself.
Part of the solution is to tackle pay discrimination. But even if we eliminate that entirely, there is structural unfairness built into the pension system itself.
For example, women who take maternity leave miss out on vital pension contributions because their employer doesn’t have to pay pension contributions for all of the time off.
Workers who take unpaid leave to help care for children or relatives also currently miss out on pension contributions- and we know that most of this work is done by women.
Over the course of a career, these missed pension contributions add up to a big gap with male workers.
But we can change this.
The Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS) England and Wales, one of the biggest pension schemes in the country, has recently announced trailblazing action to tackle the Gender Pension Gap.
This includes:
- Making authorised unpaid absences under 31 days automatically pensionable
- Make the full 52 week maternity/parental/adoption leave pensionable (currently only 39 weeks are)
- Improve rules for buying back pension entitlement from periods of more than 30 days unpaid leave including how the amount is calculated
- Mandatory gender pension gap reporting
Why is this important?
This will make a real difference to millions of women and shows what can be done when pension schemes take this issue seriously.
We are calling on all other public sector pension schemes- covering 2.5 million more women- to take the same positive steps.
The government says it wants to close the Gender Pension Gap- this is a chance to prove it by acting to help public sector workers and setting an example to the private sector. Government should be encouraging all schemes to adopt these changes.
Add your voice to put pressure on the public sector pension schemes to act.