The big question. Why pensions?

People often ask me, “why pensions Jackie?”

And, I can honestly say that it wasn’t something that I went into intentionally or thought would be the direction of my whole career, but all those years ago and my first job as a Junior Administrator within Scottish Amicable, I was hooked! It might sound weird, but a passion was ignited.

And since then, it’s always been really clear. A pension is not for some, it’s for everyone!

We’re all going to retire one day, but people are under prepared, under financed and under educated, for one of the biggest moments of their lives.

So, if you could help with something that could make everyone’s lives better then why wouldn’t you be passionate about it?

Everyone is different right? There’s no one size fits all when it comes to retirement and when you start to really look at things in detail and where the gaps are, it’s not good enough.

There’s a staggering pension gap for women, with the average young women retiring with around ￡100k less than a man ??.

The drivers for this are pay inequalities, part time working and time off to manage childcare making it harder for women to save as much across their working life. Sadly, despite more women saving into a pension, the gender pension gap persists and won’t go away without action.

At Scottish Widows we've been conducting research into retirement trends for 20 years, shining the spotlight on inequalities and pushing for reforms to improve peoples’ retirement opportunities.

But it’s not all doom and gloom, making the right decisions in your 20s and 30s can have a massive impact on your future financial outcomes and taking the steps today can change what your tomorrow looks like.

I’m so proud of how Scottish Widows have championed this in the run up to International Women’s Day (IWD), the team have campaigned and challenged our customers to beat the gap. Here’s a snapshot of how we’ve looked at new ways to try and help customers connect with their pension.

Including our new Beat the Gap tool to show women (and men) how the gender pension gap emerges with tailored tips and opportunities for them to improve their pension outcomes and navigate a pension system that is better suited to a typically male savings journey.

And our special edition IWD Pension Mirror, an innovative and fun way to engage with the pension gap by guessing your age and showing the average pension for a man/woman of the same age. ?

So, from TikTok takeovers with social media influencers to Parliament events with an influential audience, these all-signal Scottish Widows credentials in tackling the gap.

On Tuesday I had my very first Instagram Live with popular finance influencer, This Girls Talks Money. I half joked that Scottish Widows had broken the internet as Instagram went down an hour before go live! If you missed it, head over to Instagram and watch it on @thisgirltalksmoney or @scottishwidows account.

International Women’s Day shines a spotlight on women, but it shouldn’t be about one day, we should be championing and talking about these issues throughout the year, collectively trying forge a more inclusive world for women.

So, if I can leave you with anything it would be to ask yourself, what do I need to do to be prepared for retirement?

Here’s my top tips:

• Check your current pension provisions – what sort of pension do you have and how much have you got? If you’ve got a workplace pension through your employer you’ll be able to check all of this with your pension provider.
• Think about how much you’ll need – I’d suggest heading over to the Retirement Living Standards website, as this will help you picture what kind of lifestyle you want and could have in retirement.
• Know where you stand with your money – the Moneyhub app is a great way of seeing all your finances securely in one place and uses tools to help you achieve your goals.
• Check your NI contributions to make sure you’ll qualify for the full state pension – you can do this on gov.uk by logging into your personal tax account.
• ?Make the change – small increases are better than nothing at all, increasing your contributions for two years in your 20s can give you an extra five years in your 30s.

#beatthegap #scottishwidows #pensionsmirror #IWD2024 #thisgirltalksmoney