More than 80% of women retire without enough super to fund a comfortable lifestyle, according to ASFA.
While UniSuper members fare much better than the national average, there are still several factors that affect women's security in retirement. It’s a complex issue, impacted by the number of women in part-time work, and women taking an average of five years out of the workforce to care for children and family members.
While International Women’s Day focuses on women in all their diversity, we also acknowledge that trans and gender diverse people retire with substantially less super than men.
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Read the transcript
The information contained in this video is of a general nature only and contains general advice. It’s been prepared without taking into account your individual objective, financial situation or needs. Before making any decision about your super you should consider your personal circumstances, the relevant product disclosure statement for your membership category and whether to consult a qualified financial adviser.
You can access a copy of the product disclosure statement relevant to your membership category by visiting unisuper.com.au/pds.
This video has been produced by UniSuper Management Ltd. ABN 91 006 961 799. AFSL No. 235907 on behalf of UniSuper Limited, ABN 54 006 027 121 AFSL No. 492806, the Trustee of UniSuper, ABN 91 385 943 850.
Women face unique challenges when it comes to retirement savings
We know that, in Australia, women have major challenges in regards to helping to grow their superannuation funds as much as they'd like to.
Sometimes it's just about improving their knowledge because they don't know much about how their super fund works at all. Other times it's, "Have I got enough for my retirement?" because they're approaching retirement.
Sometimes they've seen people who have retired, who don't have much to retire on, and the Centrelink pension isn't a lot of money.
And other times they just want to have a chat about consolidating some funds they've lost track of their super funds because many women I met with have had various part-time roles and they just have lost track of their super schemes so just some assistance.
So, where we're coming is to try and help them wherever we can and importantly to empower them and mention to them that, no matter what their age is or their situations, that it's never too late to make a difference.
It's really about reviewing your superannuation and being able to do what you can within the means that you have at various stages of your life because, by taking care of your superannuation, your superannuation will take care of you when you go to retire.
Have a chat with somebody in regards to the different ways and learn about the different ways that you can help your superannuation fund to grow because, as women, often we take time out of the workforce if we decide to have children, our superannuation money isn't growing during that time and we've got to work a little bit smarter and harder so that, if we are making additional contributions, our money is continuing to grow while we do have these gaps in our working lives.