Women aged 55 to 59 hold around 54% of the pension wealth accumulated by men of the same age, according to new research published by the Pensions Policy Institute (PPI), with the gender pension gap women experience worsening measurably since the PPI’s previous analysis. For anyone managing a retirement portfolio, or advising someone approaching drawdown, those numbers deserve careful attention.
How the gender pension gap women face has widened over time
The PPI’s latest report, The Underpensioned: Updating the Gender Pension Gap, sponsored by Marsh, puts the savings shortfall at 48% between men and women in its 2025 publication. That compares with a gap of 35% in its 2023 report, according to Professional Pensions, suggesting the disparity is moving in the wrong direction. The picture darkens further when those with no pension savings at all are brought into the calculation: according to Pensions Expert, that gap rises to 62% once zero-savers are included.
The PPI identifies two structural causes. Gendered working patterns, including part-time employment and career breaks typically associated with caring responsibilities, reduce women’s median pension wealth by 39% relative to men of the same age. The gender pay gap adds a further 19% reduction. One partial counterweight exists: women are more heavily represented in the public sector, and access to more generous defined-benefit public sector schemes creates a 12% positive effect on average pension wealth for women in the 55-to-59 age group relative to men.
PPI senior policy analyst and report author John Adams described the gap as “a severe inequality within the pensions landscape, with women remaining at significant risk of falling into pensioner poverty.” Marsh director of government relations Lizzy Holliday framed the accumulation problem plainly: “Having around half the pension wealth of men at the same age reflects inequalities that build up throughout women’s working lives.”
Pensioner poverty and the wider portfolio of risk
For investors and planners thinking about retirement income adequacy, the social context matters. Women account for 57% of pensioners living in poverty, according to the PPI report. That concentration has direct implications for public spending, welfare dependency and, ultimately, the policy environment in which retirement planning operates.
The research was published during Pensions Awareness Week and arrives at a moment when the policy landscape is in active flux. The Pensions Commission is currently considering the adequacy, fairness and sustainability of the UK retirement system, and a third review of the State Pension age was launched last year. Holliday said addressing the gender pension gap should be central to those discussions.
For a woman approaching her late fifties with a pension pot materially smaller than her male peers, the practical consequences are concrete. Sequence-of-returns risk bites harder on a smaller pot. A lower starting balance in drawdown leaves less room to absorb a poor run of markets in the first years of retirement, which is precisely the period when damage is most difficult to recover. Reduced income also limits the ability to fund long-term care, a cost that statistically falls more heavily on women given longer average life expectancy.
The policy response, whether through auto-enrolment thresholds, carer credits or adjustments to the State Pension, remains open. What the PPI data makes clear is that the gap is not narrowing on its own: from 35% in 2023 to 48% in 2025 is movement in the wrong direction, and with the Pensions Commission’s review under way, the next round of reform proposals will need to engage with this evidence directly.
