Evolution of Gender Patterns in Retirement Saving in Canada
Steven Lehrer (),
Yazhuo Pan and
Ross Finnie
Canadian Public Policy, 2023, vol. 49, issue S1, 6-31
Abstract:
A persistent concern regarding elderly people is their ability to sustain their economic well-being after they retire. To a large extent, consumption in retirement years is funded by savings decisions made during the pre-retirement years. Gender disparities in labour market earnings and employer-funded pensions as well as greater longevity suggest that the resources available to Canadian women in retirement will likely differ from those of men. Using 38 years of a nationally representative administrative database developed from personal income tax records, we examine the evolution of retirement savings patterns over the income distribution by age and birth cohort for women and for men. We find that although women are more likely to save at all ages, conditional on participation, they save a smaller amount and tend to be attracted to investments that on average offer a lower rate of return. Thus, policies that focus on the extensive margin of savings (participation decisions) may not reduce differences in economic well-being between women and men in retirement, and policies must also focus on the intensive margin (amount contributed). Last, across the income distribution we find substantial heterogeneity in significant gender differences in age, cohort, and period effects on both margins of retirement savings.
Keywords: retirement savings; gender differences; age-period-cohort models; pensions; retirement preparedness (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:
Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.3138/cpp.2022-034 (text/html)
access restricted to subscribers
Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.
Export reference: BibTeX
RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan)
HTML/Text
Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cpp:issued:v:49:y:2023:i:s1:p:6-31
Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.utpjournals.com/loi/cpp/
Access Statistics for this article
Canadian Public Policy is currently edited by Prof. Mike Veall
More articles in Canadian Public Policy from University of Toronto Press University of Toronto Press Journals Division 5201 Dufferin Street Toronto, Ontario, Canada M3H 5T8.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Iver Chong ( this e-mail address is bad, please contact ).