Gender gaps can affect superannuation accounts as much as salary rates.

Barriers to entering into fields, lower hourly rates of pay, fewer hours worked, and more unpaid labour affect the amount of super Australian women are retiring with, as compared to their male counterparts.

Currently, the median superannuation balance for men aged between 60-64 stands at $204,107, whereas the superannuation balance for women of the same age has a median total of $146,900. It’s a gender superannuation gap of 28%.

This gender gap in superannuation balances can be impacted even more by women using maternity leave. With women taking their time off from work and losing out on super contributions during this paid parental leave, it can affect their super in the long run as it exacerbates the income and superannuation gaps already in effect during their employment.

It can also be exacerbated by existing salary gaps across the workforce. Despite traditionally male-dominated fields experiencing high percentages of female graduates entering the workforce, the positions they fill are not always high-ranked, irrespective of experience.

There are three proposed measures concerning how the superannuation gap could be addressed at a macro level. These include:

• Including superannuation guarantee contributions in the Commonwealth Paid Parental Leave scheme, as a majority of recipients are women, and it is a leading cause of the gap exacerbation.
• allowing unused concessional contributions to be made for recipients of Commonwealth Paid Parental Leave without time limits harms women’s superannuation outcomes, so the policy needs to be changed accordingly.
• Amending the Sex Discrimination Act to ensure employers can make higher superannuation payments for their female employees if they wish to do so without contravening the existing legislation.

Here are some examples of ways in which women can increase their super balances to make up for any losses that may have been incurred:

• Contribution splitting – by having their spouse transfer some of their superannuation contributions over to their account, their own account can be increased.
• Salary-sacrificing contributions into their super to make up for the shortfall from not working in previous year.