Why are women still retiring with less?

Why are women still retiring with less — and what can we do about it?

For this Wednesday Wisdom, we’re joined by Dr Hayley James, Senior Research Fellow at Aston University’s Centre for Personal Financial Wellbeing. Dr James will explore how gender shapes the way people think about, engage with, and save into their pensions.

Drawing on research for her forthcoming book, Pension Saving in a Gendered Lifecourse, Hayley will show how traditional pension systems reflect a ‘one-size-fits-men’ model. She’ll look at how everyday life experiences, milestones and expectations create deep structural inequalities that multiply over time. She'll also talk about how phase-appropriate support might work better than typical ‘save more’ messages.

She’ll also unpack the idea of the 'life course' (socially constructed life phases) and how gendered work and care patterns affect contributions. And she'll explore why some people delay thinking about their pension until they feel like an adult, as well as what a more inclusive, realistic pensions system could look like.

Dr Hayley James

Dr Hayley James is a Senior Research Fellow in the Centre for Personal Financial Wellbeing at Aston University. Her research explores money and finance in everyday life from sociological and anthropological perspectives.

In her forthcoming book, Pension Saving in a Gendered Lifecourse (Bristol University Press), Hayley challenges the assumption that pension systems are gender-neutral. She shows how pension saving is shaped by gendered expectations and lived experience — and argues that closing the pensions gap means redesigning systems around real lives, not traditional models.

Wednesday Wisdom is a monthly learning hour at Quietroom. One or more invited experts, or one of our own team, introduces an interesting topic that connects to pensions, investment or insurance and we chat about it. Please join us.

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