At the Crescent Think Tank event in Sydney yesterday, the inaugural chair of the Crescent Think Tank and Crescent Wealth, Emeritus Professor Dianne Yerbury, said the problem stems from a variety of areas.
Dr Yerbury pointed out that, “by and large”, women still earn less than men doing the same work. Further, she said around 43 per cent of women work part-time, and that quite a few of them work in more than one part-time job, meaning the super is scattered over more than one fund.
“The average woman worker, and some of them of course aren’t in the workforce, they take out on average around five years out of their working lives to look after children and to care for other family members,” she said.
“By and large, it’s women who do that. It’s not exclusively women [but] they do it more considerably than males.
“Because of the part-time scattered nature that women work, they don’t even earn the $40,000-$50,000 p.a. pre-tax income for a month to actually get contribution benefits.
“You look at who stays home full-time and looks after the children. Only about 4 per cent of men do that. A lot of older women face retirement without the support of economic scale.”
Former RBA board member Bill Kelty, known as one of the architects of the Australian super system, said the system was designed to ensure women had equality for women.
He acknowledged there are imperfections within the super system for women.
“People who are out of the labour force for periods of time, if they’re women, if they’re having children, then that part can be covered by maternity leave payment,” Mr Kelty said.
“Women should not be disadvantaged in that period, and if they’re out for greater periods, then they should be able to earn credits in terms of their superannuation.”
However, Mr Kelty was against the government’s inquiry into the superannuation system and said they should stop fiddling with the retirement savings of working Australians.
“Stop all the changes in super. Stop all this nonsense. Stop threatening it all the time. Leave it as it is. For God’s sake, leave it alone so that the next generation can get confidence again in the system,” he said.
“Leave the superannuation retirement system alone. People are sick and tired of government coming in and reviewing it and making decisions about it.”
What a revelation. Of course Super is failing people who don’t contribute to it. What does she expect?
The counter is obviously that women live longer than men and will inherit their super.
For those not married and can’t rely on their husbands super there is the Aged Pension.
If an individual can get $250k in their super by the time they retire they will still have an ok retirement.
Women live longer than men and will therefore generally inherit their husband’s super.
This is clearly an outrage and an example of women gaming the system.
Something should be done about it (hold breath, stamp feet).
This is a joke right?…
What a load of drivel.
How can you ‘earn credits in terms of their superannuation’? Where the hell would the ‘credits (whatever that generic seemingly innocuous word is even meant to mean in the real world) that would cost millions even come from? The Gov? The employer? Their husbands or wives who are still working and earning to provide for the family?
It is ‘family wealth’ that matters. If they see a decent planner, there are numerous invaluable strategies to assist this ‘inequality’ already within SIS legislation – co-contributions, spouse contributions, super splitting elections, personal concessional & non-concessional contributions, or at retirement age the withdrawal & recontribution strategies.
And let’s not forget that the family court in divorce proceedings are overly generous especially to non-working females when it comes to distributing not only the family wealth but also the superannuation that perhaps the male or female working partner has managed to accumulate over their hard-earned work life.
Time for us to call a spade a spade, not be scared of the political correctness police and admit that these screeching minority voice media whoring ‘concerned citizens’ are entirely off the mark when to comes to inane comments like this.
super is failing people with disabilities too
A ridiculous article super is failing no-one, yes we are aware that ladies take time out of the workforce to look after families, males do this too. Unfortunately, it is a choice made by the individual, not the system failing. OMG slow news week maybe?
oh boy. We now need to be compensated and extra reward for the self less “obligation” to care for our own children… Super is Failing Women…what planet are you people from?