The Short Version
Australian women retire with around 23 percent less superannuation than men on average, according to ASFA.
The gap is structural, not personal. It is driven by the gender pay gap, career breaks for caregiving, higher rates of part-time work, and a super system that is directly tied to paid employment.
The gap has narrowed over recent decades but progress has slowed. Individual action can make a real difference in the absence of faster systemic change.
There are specific, practical strategies available to women at every life stage that can meaningfully close their personal gap.
The Gender Super Gap: Why Women Retire With Less and What to Do About It
There is a number I keep coming back to. According to the Association of Superannuation Funds of Australia, Australian women retire with around 23 percent less superannuation than men, on average. When you look at people aged 60 to 64, the median gap between women and men is approximately $53,000. And because women in Australia live, on average, around five years longer than men, they need that money to last longer than the men they’re being compared to.
Let me say plainly what that means. Women are retiring with less money and needing it to last longer. The combination is not theoretical. It is the lived financial reality of a very large number of Australian women, and it contributes directly to the fact that older women are now one of the fastest growing groups experiencing financial hardship and housing insecurity in this country.
What I want to do in this article is explain why the gap exists, because it is not what most people assume. And then I want to talk about what can actually be done about it, because there is more room to move here than the statistics suggest.
Why the Gap Exists
The most common assumption is that the gender super gap is simply a reflection of the gender pay gap. That’s part of it, but only part. The super gap is actually driven by several forces stacking on top of each other, and understanding them separately matters because the solutions to each one are different.
The pay gap
Australia’s national gender pay gap is currently around 12 percent, based on full-time average weekly earnings, according to the Workplace Gender Equality Agency. For total remuneration including super, bonuses, and other payments, the gap is wider, sitting at around 21 percent. Because superannuation is calculated as a percentage of wages, the 12 percent employer super guarantee compounds that gap directly. Every dollar you earn less than your male counterpart is also a smaller super contribution.
Career breaks for caregiving
Australia’s super system is tied almost entirely to paid employment. Every period spent out of the workforce, whether for maternity leave, extended parental leave, or caring for an ageing parent, is a period where employer super contributions stop. The contributions don’t pause and resume. They simply don’t happen.
A woman who takes two years out of the workforce at age 32 doesn’t just miss two years of contributions. She misses 35 years of compounding growth on those contributions. The long-term impact of a single career break, modelled over a working life, is often staggering. The Super Members Council has estimated that paying super on the Commonwealth Paid Parental Leave scheme, which the government committed to from July 2025, would leave a mother of two around $12,500 to $14,500 better off at retirement. That one change, for one person, over one lifetime. The cumulative effect across the workforce is enormous.
Part-time and casual work
Women make up the majority of part-time workers in Australia. Part-time work means lower earnings, which means lower super contributions. It also sometimes means falling below thresholds for some employer contributions, though the removal of the $450 monthly income threshold in 2022 has helped close one specific gap here. The broader pattern remains: women’s workforce participation, even when consistent, tends to generate lower super contributions than men’s.
Highly feminised industries
The industries and roles where women are concentrated tend to pay less, on average, than male-dominated industries with equivalent skill requirements. Care work, education, and retail all employ large numbers of women, and all sit below the national median wage. Lower wages mean lower super, compounded across a working life.
The Numbers in Practice
Here is what the gap looks like in concrete terms. According to ASFA data from their 2024 research and ATO statistics, the average super balance for women aged 60 to 64 is approximately $289,000. For men the same age it is around $361,500. The comfortable retirement benchmark for a single homeowner, according to ASFA’s updated 2025 Retirement Standard, is $630,000.
That means the average woman approaching retirement age has less than half the super she would need for a comfortable retirement. Roughly one in three retired women rely on their partner’s income to meet their living costs, according to government data, which creates a financial dependence that can become catastrophic in the event of widowhood, separation, or a partner’s ill health.
The Government’s 2024 Status of Women Report Card found that 34 percent of retired women depend on their partner’s income, compared to just 7 percent of retired men. That asymmetry tells you something important about whose name the financial knowledge, the financial decisions, and the financial security actually sit in.
This is something I saw clearly when my mother’s financial planner would address all his comments to my father. My mother sat there, present but invisible, managing a household on a budget she hadn’t set and didn’t fully understand. She wasn’t unusual. She was typical of her generation, and variations of the same dynamic still play out today.
What Has Improved
It would be dishonest not to acknowledge the progress. The gender super gap has narrowed from around 24.6 percent in 2014 to about 21 percent in 2021, according to the Australian Government’s 2025 Status of Women Report Card. Women now hold 43.6 percent of total super assets, up from 41.9 percent five years ago. The removal of the $450 monthly threshold, the legislated increase in the super guarantee to 12 percent from July 2025, and the commitment to pay super on Commonwealth Paid Parental Leave are all meaningful changes.
Progress has been real. It has also been slow. At the current rate, the gap will not close in this generation of women’s lifetimes. Which is why individual action, in parallel with systemic change, still matters enormously.
What You Can Do About It
The gap is structural. That does not mean you are powerless. There are specific strategies that can make a genuine difference to where individual women end up, and most of them are not complicated.
Understand your super balance right now
Log in to myGov, link your ATO account, and look at your superannuation. Find out how much you have, how many funds you have, what the fees are, and what investment option you’re in. This sounds basic, but a meaningful number of women I’ve worked with have never done it. You cannot take action on something you haven’t looked at.
Consolidate multiple accounts
Multiple super accounts mean multiple sets of fees eating into your balance. If you have worked for several employers over the years, there is a reasonable chance you have accounts you have forgotten about. The ATO has a tool to find lost super, accessible through myGov, and transferring multiple accounts into one is worth doing. Before you consolidate, however, check whether any of your existing accounts hold insurance — life cover, income protection, or TPD. If your health has changed since those policies were taken out, you may not be able to get equivalent cover in the fund you roll into. It is a quick thing to check, and it matters.
Salary sacrifice, even a small amount
Salary sacrifice is an arrangement with your employer where a portion of your pre-tax salary is directed into super rather than into your take-home pay. Because it’s taxed at 15 percent rather than your marginal rate, it is one of the most efficient ways to build super. Even $20 or $30 a week, started now, compounds substantially over time. For many women, the real barrier to salary sacrifice isn’t that they can’t afford it. It’s that they haven’t set it up.
Make use of the government co-contribution
If you earn under $62,488 and make a personal after-tax contribution to your super, the government will match a portion of it, up to $500 per year. This is called the super co-contribution. It is, in straightforward terms, free money. The number of eligible Australians who don’t claim it is very high, and women make up the majority of people who qualify. You can find more detail on the ATO’s co-contribution page.
Spouse contributions
If you have a partner who is a higher earner, they can contribute to your super and receive a tax offset for doing so. Spouse contributions are particularly useful during periods when one partner is not working or working reduced hours, such as during parental leave or while caring for children or elderly relatives. They’re one of the most underused strategies in the superannuation system.
Know your numbers before a career break
If you’re planning to take time out of the workforce, the best time to prepare is before you stop, not after. Look at your current super balance, model what a two or three year break will cost in terms of missed contributions, and see whether there are voluntary contributions you can make in advance to partially offset that. The women who come out of parental leave in the strongest financial position are almost always the ones who thought about it before the baby arrived.
The Broader Point
Financial literacy doesn’t close the gender super gap on its own. The structural causes need structural solutions, and some of those are finally beginning to arrive. But women who understand how super works, who know their balances, who take the available strategies seriously, consistently end up in a different position to women who don’t.
Knowing the rules of a system that was largely designed without you in mind is not a small thing. It is how you navigate it more effectively than the people who assume the system will take care of them.
The gap is real. It is not inevitable.
For women who want to go further, My Money Makeover is a complete 7-module program that takes you from financial overwhelm to a calm, structured money system. The course includes a dedicated superannuation module in plain English, live coaching calls, and a private community of women doing exactly the same work.
Not sure where to start? Join the free Financially Fit & Fabulous Masterclass — a practical introduction to getting your money working for you.
Limitations: This article provides general information about the gender super gap in Australia. Super balances, government thresholds, and policy settings can change. The strategies discussed are general in nature and may not suit everyone. For personalised advice about your superannuation, please consider speaking with a qualified financial adviser.
Disclaimer: This article contains general financial information only and is not personal financial advice. Your financial situation is unique. Before making any financial decisions, please consider whether this information is appropriate for your circumstances and seek advice from a qualified financial professional if needed.
Sources
- ASFA: Media Release — ASFA calls on Government to close retirement savings gender gap, March 2023. superannuation.asn.au
- ASFA Research: An Update on Superannuation Account Balances, September 2024. superannuation.asn.au
- ASFA Retirement Standard, Q4 2025. superannuation.asn.au/resources/retirement-standard
- Australian Government Status of Women Report Card 2024. genderequality.gov.au
- Australian Government Status of Women Report Card 2025. genderequality.gov.au
- Super Members Council: Gender Super Gap. smcaustralia.com
- Finder: The State of Women’s Wealth, April 2025. morningstar.com.au
- Workplace Gender Equality Agency: Australia’s Gender Equality Scorecard 2023–24. wgea.gov.au
- ATO Taxation Statistics 2021–22. ato.gov.au
