According to the pension income report, although the gender income gap has decreased over the past two decades, women continue to earn less than men in their retirement years – in some cases 2,000 euros less per annum and up to 6,500 less than men every year.
Researchers at the Finnish Pensions Centre and the government’s Centre for Economic Research VATT, reviewed different gross and net pension and subsistence incomes for men and women, and also looked at total family incomes.
Women's pensions 66 cents to men's euro
When they examined employment pensions alone, they found the largest gender income gaps. In 2013 women were paid 66 cents for each euro of employment pension income that men received. They argued that this was due to women's lower salaries and shorter working careers.
However when they added in national, widow and guarantee pensions the income gap narrowed. This was especially evident in the case of 75 year-olds living alone - women earned more than 90 cents for every euro that men received in such cases.
Few men receive widower’s pensions because their own pensions decrease the benefit. Although senior women were found to be in extreme danger of slipping into poverty because of their small pension benefits and the fact that they lived alone, the researchers found that the number of retirees with small incomes grew faster among men than women.