Australia's “Other” Gender Wage Gap: Baby Boomers and Compulsory Superannuation Accounts

Abstract

Government budgetary pressures and demographic trends have made retirement income policy a priority in developed economies. One option for policy reform is to increase private saving. In Australia, legislation requiring compulsory employer payments for the purposes of retirement savings addresses this option. This system poses particular difficulties for women who have broken patterns of paid employment and relatively low wages. When simulations that project likely employment participation and retirement outcomes incorporate a gendered approach and focus on the “baby boomer” cohort, the results highlight the low probability that women will accumulate adequate independent private retirement income. Over their lifetimes, Australian women baby boomers will spend around 35 percent less time in paid employment than their male counterparts. The projected average gender gap in compulsory accumulations is of a similarly large magnitude. The results emphasize the continuing need for publicly financed redistribution schemes, such as the Australian age pension.

Keywords:

• Gender
• pensions
• retirement
• superannuation
• wage gap
• aging

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This paper was financed, in part, by an ARC Linkage Grant (LP0347060), the Western Australian Office for Women's Policy, and Office for Senior's Interests and Volunteering. It was completed while Alison Preston was on study leave at Stirling University, Scotland, and she would like to thank the Department of Management and Organization for the hospitality provided while there. The authors gratefully acknowledge the constructive and helpful comments and suggestions provided by the guest editors of Feminist Economics and three anonymous referees.

Notes

JEL Codes: G23, H55, I38

The taxation of superannuation is an issue of ongoing debate in Australia, particularly as fund managers perceive current taxation arrangements as providing disincentives to invest in superannuation. See for example, Association of Superannuation Funds of Australia (2004).

See, for example: Madonna Harrington Meyer (1990); James E. Pesando, Morley Gunderson, and John McLaren (1991); Kathleen Perkins (1993); Eileen J. Feurbach and Carol J. Erdwins (1994); Stanley DeViney and Jennifer Crew Solomon (1995); Annika E. Sundén and Brian J. Surette (1998); Vickie L. Bajtelsmit, Alexandra Bernasek, and Nancy A. Jianakoplos (1999); Ellen A. Bruce (1999); Jay Ginn and Sarah Arber (1999); Virginia Richardson (1999); Barbara Butrica and Howard M. Iams (2000); Leslie A. Morgan (2000); Alexandra Bernasek and Stephanie Schwiff (2001); Mary Condon (2001); Sun-Kang Koh et al. (2001); Susan Gee et al. (2002); Thomas K. Gregoire, Dieth Kilty, and Virginia Richardson (2002).

While the data are drawn from the Peter McDonald et al. NLC survey, the authors of this article bear full responsibility for the analysis and interpretation of the data as presented in this paper.

We did a check on the suitability of this 0.5 weighting given to part-time employment and found that of those employed part-time in Australia (defined as less than 35 hours per week) average part-time hours per week were around 21.4 for men and 19.1 for women in 2000/01. In other words, if a person works part-time then, on average, they are employed roughly half the time as their full-time counterpart.

• Rates of return to labor market experience

• Notes: These coefficient estimates on the rates of return to additional years of labor market experience are taken from a standard wage equation for persons with average educational attributes. Full details of the model are reported in Alison Preston and Siobhan Austen (2001: 295). In this equation, labor market experience was estimated using the standard measure of potential experience (i.e., age minus years of formal schooling minus age when school first commenced). We appreciate that this potential measure may overstate the returns to actual experience, especially in the case of women. In the simulations presented here, this overstatement will simply narrow (rather than widen) the estimated gender gap in superannuation accumulations. In other words, it will produce a more conservative estimate than might otherwise have been the case.

This assumption is reasonable. According to ABS data collected in 2000, only 18.7 percent of women in employment have superannuation funds that consist of personal/spouse contributions and employer/business contributions. Among men, the corresponding share is 25.2 percent (ABS 6361.0, Table 15).

This equates to the standard investment real rate of interest recommended by the Australian Securities and Investment Commission (ASIC) for use when calculating investment returns on a balanced style investment portfolio.

Table 1 shows that, for women, this is a fair assumption. Around 70 percent of female baby boomers make no voluntary contributions (either in the form of own, spouse, or voluntary employer contributions) into their superannuation funds.

A target level frequently referred to in the Australian literature is that of 70 – 80 percent of pre-retirement expenditure or approximately 60 – 65 percent of gross pre-retirement income (Senate Select Committee on Superannuation 2002: 53). The social welfare measure of the age pension in Australia is set at 25 percent of MAWTE, which, in May 2001, equated to A$10,286 per annum (seasonally adjusted, Australian Bureau of Statistics 2001).

• The formula used to compute the annual annuity (R), with the principal (A) completely exhausted, may be written as follows:

• where r measures the real rate of interest (as before, assumed to be equal to 3.25 percent) and n measures the number of payments. Based on 1997 – 99 life tables, Australian men and women who reach 65 may expect, on average, to live for another 16.6 and 20.2 years, respectively; in other words n is equal to 16.6 years for men and 20.2 years for women. We assume that the lump sum used to purchase the annuity is not subject to tax. There is no adjustment for inflation; estimates provided are in real 2001 Australian dollars.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Therese Jefferson

JEL Codes: G23, H55, I38