The statutory pension is often not enough to maintain the standard of living in old age.
Women in particular should therefore save more money for old-age provision now.
On a national average, the
statutory pension *
is
lower
for
women
than for men
Women
have to
save money
earlier
for their retirement provision *
How much
money
should
women
aged 30, 40, and 50 have?
Frankfurt - If you want to maintain your current standard of living in old age, you need far more than just a statutory
pension
.
It
is therefore becoming increasingly important to make
provisions early on and
to
save
money
.
For
women in
particular
,
old-age provision is
even more relevant than for men.
This is mainly due to the fact that
women continue
to
receive
around 20 percent less
money
(gross) than men
on average for the hour they work
.
This is the result of figures from the Federal Statistical Office from 2019. This makes many women
financially dependent on their partner
even before
retirement
, in working life.
For a high standard in retirement: women have to save more money
The
pension gap
, i.e. the difference between the last salary as an employed
person
and the
statutory
pension
, is
accordingly higher
for
women
.
So if women want to maintain their standard of living in old age and have the same
money
available, they have to save significantly more earlier.
This is due, on the one hand, to the low income they receive on average during their career and, on the other hand, to the steadily increasing life expectancy *.
Compared to men (78), women (83) are five years older on average.
Average life expectancy for men |
Average life expectancy for women |
|---|---|
78 years |
83 years |
Source: Destatis Federal Statistical Office |
How much money do women have to save for retirement?
The consequence of this is that
women
have to
worry
about their financial
security in old age
much earlier
.
This was also shown by the calculations of the “Weltsparen” financial platform, which used the statistics from gehalt.de and the Federal Statistical Office to determine how much
money
women should have saved depending on their age in order
to maintain the current standard of living
with their
pension
.
The calculations are based on the assumptions of the starting age of 25 and
retirement
at 67.
The values determined for how much
money
should be saved relate to unmarried
women
without children (tax class 1) from an old federal state.
The church tax and compulsory insurance were also included and inflation was taken into account.
# Basic security: Women are particularly affected in retirement age # Pension # old-age poverty https://t.co/cJVuD74E7z pic.twitter.com/4cJSnPc8CV
- Federal Statistical Office (@destatis) April 25, 2016
The money from the statutory pension is not enough: women in particular have to keep a good house
According to this,
women
at the age of 30 achieve an average gross annual income of EUR 40,189.
This corresponds to a monthly net income of 2,062 euros.
The statutory right to a
pension
is 1,250 euros per month.
So the bottom line is that after
retirement,
812 euros
are missing
every month in order to maintain the standard of living and to manage the same
amount of money
.
If you calculate this value over the entire period of 17 years in which
women
receive
an average
pension
, a total of 163,000 euros is missing.
Experts recommend: women should save money for retirement
Therefore, experts recommend
saving
money
every month
.
Nevertheless, given the average earnings of
women
at the age of 30, the
pension gap
of 163,000 euros could not be closed even if ten percent of the net income were put on the high edge every month.
Because in the remaining 37 years until
retirement
, only 110,000 euros could be saved.
Women would, therefore, at the age of 30 years already 52,000 euros have saved up to this difference balance and in the
pension
each month over the same
money
to have, as in the workplace.
For comparison: the monthly average net income for men aged 30 is € 2,577.
This means that the right to a statutory
pension,
at 1,525 euros, is significantly higher than for
women of
the same age.
According to the calculations, men would have to have saved only 16,000 euros at the
age of
30 in order to maintain the
standard in retirement age
.
That corresponds to about a third of the
money
women need.
Pension gap for women: the higher the age, the more money is missing in the pension
According to this calculation, the older you get, the more difficult it becomes
to close
the
pension
gap by saving.
With a gross annual salary of 49,446 euros, which corresponds to 2420 euros per month, the
pension gap
for women at the age of 40 is already 188,000 euros.
Assuming that
women
save 10 percent of their net monthly wages in the remaining 27 years up to retirement, they will need 104,000 euros in their account at the age of 40 - twice as much
money
as they did at 30.
The pension gap for
women
aged 50 and over becomes
even more evident
.
Then
a total of 193,000 euros is
missing for the living standards from professional life in the
pension
.
According to the previously used calculation, the amount of 54,000 euros could be saved.
With the difference of a whopping 139,000 euros, a 50-year-old would have to have a very large amount of
money
.
Men have less wealth due to their higher average income.
Age |
Pension gap for women with an average income |
30 years |
163,000 euros |
40 years |
188,000 euros |
50 years |
193,000 euros |
Source: weltsparen.de |
Investing instead of saving: Women in particular should secure early retirement benefits
But how can
women
in particular
secure
themselves
financially and provide for their
retirement
?
The above amounts are primarily intended as a guide if the
money is
in a savings book or current account.
Due to the inflation rate, it is also advisable to think about long-term financial investments * when considering retirement.
You don't need a lot of wealth or the time to constantly track the latest price developments on the stock market.
The earlier the
money is
invested, the greater the chance of benefiting from it in the long term.
The “Weltsparen” portal took this as an opportunity to carry out a further calculation using the example of ETF savings plans (index funds).
If a 30-year-old woman were to invest ten percent of the average monthly net salary for
women
aged 30,
i.e.
206 euros, in a savings plan, she could
save a total of 264,000 euros
with an average return of five percent until her
retirement
.
This amount would even
close
the
pension gap
.
(Yannick Wenig)
* fr.de is part of the nationwide Ippen digital network.
