New figures reveal large gender pension gap in Crawley

New figures have revealed Crawley has one of the largest gender pension gaps in the country.
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The median income by taxpayers of State Pension Age, 2018-19 tax year (most recent available) is £20,100 for men compared to £13,600 for women, a freedom of information request to HMRC showed.

This is a 32.3 per cent gap.

In Horsham the median male income is £22,600 and the female income is £ 18,100, a gap of 19.9 per cent.

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In Mid Sussex the median male income is £22,000 and the female income is £16,100, a gap of 26.8 per cent.

“Women who are receiving their pensions now have experienced a lifetime of the gender pay gap, meaning that the earnings they have had available to build a pension have been lower than men,” said the Fawcett Society’s Andrew Bazeley.

The amount of state pension people receive depends on when they were born and how many years they have spent paying National Insurance (NI) contributions.

Prior to changes introduced in April 2016, between 30 and 44 years’ of contributions were needed to claim the full basic state pension of £137.60 per week – roughly £7,155 per year.

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Fewer contributing years means less state pension awarded, while under the new system claimants must have contributed at least 10 years to get any state pension at all.

The DWP says the proportion of pensioners in poverty has fallen in recent years – but it is still at 13 per cent, and 14 per cent for women alone.

A spokesperson said: “We are committed to action that helps to alleviate levels of pensioner poverty and our ground-breaking pension reforms, including automatic enrolment, have helped millions more women save into a pension, many for the first time.

“Pension participation among eligible women working in the private sector has risen from 40 per cent in 2012, to 86 per cent in 2020.”

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