The gender gap in superannuation still drags women’s retirement years into poverty in many cases. But female workers are fighting back.

New figures from research house Rice Warner show as women move towards retirement, they are pushing more money into their super balances.

This chart, produced by Rice Warner, shows that in the early to mid-career years, women are generally outstripped by men in terms of superannuation contributions.

As the next chart shows, men’s incomes also outstrip women’s as they move through middle age. That allows them to build bigger superannuation balances.

“Unfortunately, this trend is exacerbated, as statistics show that women retire earlier than men, and live nearly three years longer, giving them a longer period in retirement over which to spend their retirement benefit,” Rice Warner’s research says.

However, by the time they hit 50, as the first chart shows, something interesting begins to take place. Women start to make bigger super contributions than men.

“Our data shows there is evidence that women are making an active effort to close the gap through contributing to their superannuation. This is evident in Graph 3 which shows that the average voluntary contribution by females is typically higher than that of men in a similar age cohort, and markedly so closer to retirement,” Rice Warner says.

That late-career savings boost appears to be having a positive effect on women’s balances. The following chart shows that they are gaining ground on men in those years.

The following chart from Roy Morgan, which measures a different sample six months after Rice Warner, found very similar outcomes.

It also showed that in the 10 years to August 2018, the gap between men’s and women’s balances has shrunk significantly.

Analysis of behavioural finance suggests that men invest more aggressively than women, which should lead to higher returns.

“However, while Rice Warner’s data does confirm that males who elect an investment choice do invest slightly more in aggressive assets than females, the difference is minor.”

Given that most fund members are in default super products where no choice has been made and there is no difference between where men’s and women’s money is invested, there is virtually no difference created by investment preferences, Rice Warner says.

Currently women have about 40 per cent less superannuation than men. and, as the above chart shows, it lasts through life.

Rice Warner recommended women and their employers take the following actions to improve their super situation