The onus to fix the problems of the super accumulation gap lies solely with the government and not with women, according to Women in Super (WIS) national chair Cate Wood.
Speaking at the WIS Make Super Fair campaign launch, Wood said retirement outcomes for women required an urgent reconsideration of the super system which saw women retire with an average of $85,000 less than men.
“We must do better than a system that sees women retiring with 47 per cent less than men. This is a crisis and unless we act now we will be leaving a tragic legacy for younger women,” she said.
“It is not fair or reasonable to simply tell women to fix the problem themselves. We need to get the basics right.”
Wood also outlined WIS’ policy proposals to increase retirement outcomes for women:
WIS calculated the pay gap between men and women averaged across the past two decades as sitting around 18 per cent, with 40 per cent of older single women living in poverty.
Super funds had a “tremendous month” in November, according to new data.
Australia faces a decade of deficits, with the sum of deficits over the next four years expected to overshoot forecasts by $21.8 billion.
APRA has raised an alarm about gaps in how superannuation trustees are managing the risks associated with unlisted assets, after releasing the findings of its latest review.
Compared to how funds were allocated to March this year, industry super funds have slightly decreased their allocation to infrastructure in the six months to September – dropping from 11 per cent to 10.6 per cent, according to the latest APRA data.