International Women’s Day shines spotlight on super gap

The Australian Institute of Superannuation Trustees (AIST) has urged the Federal Government to use International Women’s Day as an opportunity to extend superannuation to paid parental leave.

AIST chief executive, Eva Scheerlinck, said women were disadvantaged most by the fact that parental leave was the only paid leave that did not include superannuation, because women accounted for more than 90% of all parental leave taken by primary carers.

“For every dollar a man earns, a woman earns 67 cents on average, and women have 40% less superannuation on retirement and live longer, which is hardly a recipe for the comfortable retirement that they deserve,” Scheerlinck said.

“They also spend more time out of the workforce doing unpaid work caring for children and other family members, which is even more reason that action should be taken to ensure they don’t fall further behind during career breaks.”

Scheerlinck said super on paid parental leave would allow parents to continue building their retirement savings while taking time out of the paid workforce to care for children.

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“It would be another step to improving the fairness, equity, adequacy, and transparency of a retirement savings system which, although one of the best in the world, still has room for improvement.”

She said the recent passing of legislation scrapping the $450 monthly salary threshold for super payments was good news for low-income workers, many of whom were women, but more action was needed.

“This includes maintaining the commitment to the legislated increase in the Superannuation Guarantee to 12% by 2025, addressing the gender pay gap, and assessing the level of financial coercion experienced by women through the early release of superannuation scheme.”