There’s a reason the gender pension gap doesn’t get as much attention as the pay gap. It’s quieter. It builds up over years, often without anyone noticing, and by the time it shows up it can be hard to fix. Women aged 55 to 59 in the UK hold median private pension wealth of around £81,000, compared to £156,000 for men in the same age group. That’s a gap of 48%. And the causes aren’t mysterious. They’re baked into how many women’s working lives actually look: career breaks, part-time hours, lower average pay and a pension system that wasn’t designed with those patterns in mind.
What makes it worse is that a handful of persistent myths stop women from acting sooner. Here are the five that tend to do the most damage, and what you can do about each one.
My Partner’s Pension Will Cover Both of Us
This is one of the most common assumptions, and one of the riskiest. A partner’s workplace or private pension belongs to them. If the relationship ends, you won’t automatically get a share of it. Divorce settlements can include pension splitting, but it doesn’t happen by default and the process is often complicated.
Even in long, stable relationships, there’s a problem. If your partner dies, you might receive a spouse’s pension from their scheme, but it’ll typically be a fraction of what they were getting. And the state pension is based on your own National Insurance record, not your partner’s.
The fix is to build your own pension pot, even a small one. If you’re not working, your partner can pay into a pension on your behalf. You’ll only need to contribute £2,880 a year, and the government will top it up to £3,600 through basic rate tax relief.
I Can’t Afford to Save Right Now
When money is tight, a pension feels like the last priority. Childcare costs, rent, mortgage payments, food bills: they’re all right in front of you, and retirement feels decades away. But even tiny contributions add up over time, and the earlier they start, the more they’ll grow.
If you’re employed and earning above £10,000, you’ll be auto-enrolled into a workplace pension. Your employer has to contribute too. Opting out means walking away from free money. For self-employed women or those earning below the threshold, setting up a personal pension with even £25 or £50 a month will make a noticeable difference over 20 or 30 years.
Getting retirement planning advice will help you work out what’s realistic right now and build a plan that grows as your income does. You don’t need to have everything figured out at once.
I’ll Catch Up Later When the Kids Are Older
This one feels logical. You step back from work to look after children, and you plan to ramp up your pension contributions once they’re in school or off to university. The trouble is, catching up is genuinely harder than it sounds.
According to a 2024 report by NOW: Pensions and the Pensions Policy Institute, women face an average career gap of around 10 years due to caring responsibilities, which can cost roughly £39,000 in lost pension savings. Compound interest works best when it has time. A £100 monthly contribution starting at age 25 will produce a significantly larger pot than the same amount starting at 40, even if the total paid in ends up being less.
If you’ve taken a break, the priority is to start contributing again as soon as you can, even at a lower amount. Don’t wait until you can afford the “perfect” contribution level. Something is always better than nothing.
The State Pension Will Be Enough
The full new state pension for 2026/27 is £12,548 a year. That’s roughly £241 a week. The Retirement Living Standards, published by the PLSA in June 2026, suggest you’ll need around £32,700 a year for a moderate retirement as a single person, and that doesn’t include rent or mortgage costs. So even with a full state pension, there’s a gap of around £20,000 a year to fill.
And not everyone will get the full amount. You need 35 qualifying years of National Insurance contributions. If you’ve spent significant time out of work or earning below the lower earnings limit, you might have gaps in your record. You can check your state pension forecast on the GOV.UK website, and in some cases you can make voluntary NI contributions to fill in missing years.
The state pension is a foundation, but it won’t fund the kind of retirement most people want. A private or workplace pension on top of it will make a real difference.
It’s Too Late to Start
Women in their 40s and 50s sometimes feel like the window has closed. It hasn’t. You might not build the same pot as someone who started at 22, but you can still make a meaningful difference to your retirement income.
If you’re over 50, you might be in your highest-earning years. That’s the time to increase pension contributions if you can. You can also carry forward unused annual allowance from the previous three tax years, which means you could make larger one-off contributions without hitting the tax limit.
It’s also the right time to look at all your finances together, not just pensions. ISAs, investments, property, savings: they all play a part. What matters is having a plan that ties everything together. And if your situation is complicated, or you’re just not sure where to start, getting professional retirement planning advice will help you make better decisions at any stage, whether you’re starting from scratch or getting back on track after a break.
Take Control Before the Myths Do
These myths persist because they sound plausible. But each one can quietly cost women thousands of pounds over a lifetime. The gender pension gap won’t close on its own, and waiting for the system to change isn’t a plan.
Check your state pension forecast. Find out what’s in your workplace pension. Look at whether you have any gaps you could fill. Whether you’re 28 and just had your first child, or 55 and thinking seriously about when to stop working, there’s always something you can do. The worst myth of all is the one that says it isn’t the right time.
Please note: Investment returns are not guaranteed. Values can go down as well as up, and the income from your investments may change. You could get back less than you originally put in. Past performance is not an indicator of future performance.