Women are starting pension saving too late, new research shows (Image: Getty)
Women born before 1998 have been told they need to take action – or face trouble in their retirement. New research shows shocking figures that women retire with almost half the wealth accrued by men – a process that starts at age 28, new research has found.
While 22% of men aged 28 said retirement was a financial priority, that number fell to just 8% among women, according to a survey by investment platform AJ Bell. It means that women need to start thinking about their retirement much earlier than they are currently doing, experts say.
Women did not prioritise their pension at the same rate as men until age 41, by which time it was impossible to catch up, AJ Bell found. “At 28, many women will be starting to think about getting married or starting a family and graduates might also be looking over their shoulder at their student debt balance,” says Charlene Young from AJ Bell.
“As many take career breaks, cracks start appearing from missed or lower contributions in the key years when pension growth is so important. These cracks manifest as a chunky gender pension gap by retirement.”
This gap is compounded by the gender pay gap, which sees women in full-time employment earn 7% less than men on average. Many more women are in part-time employment than men, too, meaning they are more likely to miss out on auto-enrolment into employee pension contributions.
Since 2012, most staff automatically pay 5% of their income into a workplace pension and employers contribute at least 3%, but this is not automatic for people earning less than £10,000. Some 21% of women aged between 29 and 40 work part-time, compared with 5% of men.
By the time women reach ages 55-59 (with 55 being the minimum workplace pension age), they suffer a wealth gap of 48% to men, according to Department of Work and Pensions research between 2020 and 2022. Pension provider Legal and General put the average pension pots at £156,000 for men and £81,000 for women aged over 55.
There are signs some women are taking action. Women paid more into their pensions than men in January 2026, according to data from retirement firm PensionBee, for only the second time in its history, with females aged in their 40s driving the increase.
Female customers contributed 104% of the amount men contributed, despite accounting for only 42% of total clients. Back in 2024, women contributed less than half (48%) of the total contributed by men, and this rose to 58% in 2025.
PensionBee said it is the first time it has seen women’s pension contributions surpassing those from men since 2018. Women aged 40 to 49 contributed 185% of the equivalent contributions made by men in January, driving much of the overall increase.
The surge in pension contributions coincided with HM Revenue and Customs’ January self-assessment tax deadline.
PensionBee suggested that self-employed and freelance women in their 40s are making significant last-minute lump sum contributions to bolster their pension savings and make the most of pensions tax relief.
Maike Currie, VP personal finance at PensionBee, said: “Seeing women out-contribute men – for the crucial self-assessment month of January – is very encouraging, showing more women in their 40s are in self-employment and/or are higher rate tax payers and conscious of the importance of making pension contributions.”
She added: “However, across other age groups, the picture is still very uneven, despite improvements on previous years. Women aged 18 to 29 contributed 7% less than men, while those aged 60 to 69 contributed 26% less, a gap that reflects a lifetime of compounding disadvantage rather than disengagement.”
The last time PensionBee female clients contributed more than their male counterparts was in April 2018, before the coronavirus pandemic.
Ms Currie added: “There is clearly growing engagement and a determination from women in their mid-40s in particular to bolster their retirement savings.
“However, closing the gender pension gap will require systemic reform. Women remain over-represented among the UK’s ‘invisible workers’ – falling outside the net of auto-enrolment, which has very much been designed around formal employment structures and the payroll.”
PensionBee was founded in 2014 and has over £6 billion in assets on behalf of 275,000 customers.