• Prior to retirement women face a gender pay gap, broken work histories, have lower superannuation, have a greater incidence of single person households and an increasing incidence of homelessness.

• There are slightly more men than women on NSA, 52% compared to 48%. However, there has been a significant increase in the number of women on NSA since 2012, from 40%, due to increases in the Age Pension qualifying age for women, movement of grandfathered parenting payment recipients onto NSA and the closure and phase out of the wife payment, Widow B Pension, Partners Allowance and Widows Allowance.

• Women who exit the workforce in their 40’s and 50’s to care for grandchildren and/ or ageing parents and then need to re-enter the workforce struggle due to a combination of age and sex discrimination. Anyone retrenched over 55 will spend twice as long on NSA compared to someone less than 55 years old.

• Mature age women are the largest group by age and gender of NSA recipients.

• One of the drivers of poverty for people on the Age Pension is that often older women NSA recipients have been forced to run down any income or assets they may have had. Women’s career development is generally different from men. It is often more complex (for example, conflict between work and family) and is often characterised by different career stages or patterns (for example, intervals away from full time employment to assume care responsibilities)

 

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