To evaluate the main financial risks facing young British women today, we carried out a study together with AEGON. For this purpose, we recruited 1223 women and men from our British Online Access Panel. As part of the initiative “Insuring Women’s Futures (IWF)” by the Chartered Insurance Institute (CII), the results of the online study were published in the Financial Times.

The sobering result: Despite advances made in gender equality and growing female presence in leading positions, young British women are less likely to accumulate wealth over the course of their lifetime than previous generations.

The reasons for this are diverse. Women are more likely to work in part-time positions, typically have lower-paid jobs, and are more likely to take a career break to care for their families than men. Three out of five professional women return to lower-skilled and poorer paid jobs after career breaks. There are other burdens such as rising student debt, the difficulty of saving to buy a property and the looming care crisis – all these factors generally affect women more than men. Even though, on average, women obtain better grades than men, they still remain under-represented in degree courses which offer the greatest earning potential. The inequality is exacerbated by the gender pay gap. The bottom line is, by age 60-64, women possess only a quarter of the average pension wealth held by the average men of the same age.

If you are interested in reading the detailed study results, we would be happy to send you the appropriate information. Please contact us, we look forward to hearing from you!