The gender wealth gap and the role of private pension wealth in Great Britain

Abstract Research on gender wealth gaps is hampered by the fact that most wealth surveys gather information on wealth at the household or family level rather than for individuals, and also often do not include pension wealth. Here we exploit the rich data on individual wealth including private pension wealth (occupational and personal) obtained by the British Wealth and Assets Survey (WAS) to assess the gender wealth gap in Great Britain between 2006–08 and 2018–20, with a particular focus on the prominent role of private pension wealth. We find that in 2018–20 mean wealth for women was 34.0% lower than for men when pension wealth was included versus only 16.3% lower when it was not. Decomposition analysis shows that differences between men’s and women’s observed socioeconomic characteristics account for a significant share of the private pension wealth gap, with differences in labour market experiences (labour income, career gaps and part-time jobs) playing a key role. We also find an increase in the absolute gender pension gap over time that is associated with the rising proportion of pension wealth held in Defined Contribution (DC) schemes that are based on the return on accumulated pension contribution ‘pots’ rather than Defined Benefit (DB) schemes where entitlement is based on salary and years of service. Financial and business wealth is also an important contributor to the overall wealth gap, and like pension wealth its contribution is seen to increase towards the top of the distribution.