How Do Gendered Labour Market Trends and the Pay Gap Translate into the Projected Gender Pension Gap? A Comparative Analysis of Five Countries with Low, Middle and High GPGs

Gijs Dekkers, Karel Van den Bosch, Mikkel Barslund, Tanja Kirn, Nicolas Baumann, Nataša Kump, Philippe Liégeois, Amílcar Moreira and Nada Stropnik
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Karel Van den Bosch: Belgian Federal Planning Bureau, 1040 Brussels, Belgium
Tanja Kirn: Center of Economics, University of Liechtenstein, 9490 Vaduz, Liechtenstein
Nicolas Baumann: Center of Economics, University of Liechtenstein, 9490 Vaduz, Liechtenstein
Nataša Kump: Institute for Economic Research, 1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia
Philippe Liégeois: Luxembourg Institute of Socio-Economique Research (LISER), 4366 Esch-sur-Alzette, Luxembourg
Amílcar Moreira: Institute of Social Science, University of Lisbon, 1600-189 Lisbon, Portugal
Nada Stropnik: Institute for Economic Research, 1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia

Social Sciences, 2022, vol. 11, issue 7, 1-26

Abstract: This article explores how the Gender Pension Gap (GPG)—the relative difference in average pension received by men and women—might evolve in the future in various European countries, given past, current, and projected future labour market behaviour and earnings of women and men, and current pension regulations. The GPG reflects career inequalities between women and men, though these are partly mitigated by the redistributive impact of the public retirement pensions. They are further mitigated by survivor benefits. This study aims to document both mechanisms in the projections of the GPG. As the GPG varies widely across European countries, we analyse countries with a high (Luxembourg), high and low middle (Belgium and Switzerland Portugal), and low (Slovenia) GPG. We find that the GPG will fall significantly in all five countries over the coming decades. The fundamental drivers behind this development are discussed. In addition to the base scenario, we simulate two variants to show the impact of the Gender Pension Coverage Gap and of survivor pensions. Additionally, we project the GPG if current labour market gender gaps were to remain at their present level, and, conversely, if these were to disappear overnight. These alternative scenarios, one of which also serves as a robustness test, suggest that the future decline of the GPG is largely the result of labour market developments that have already happened during the past decades.

Keywords: Gender Pension Gap; dynamic microsimulation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: A B N P Y80 Z00 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
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