The Financial Markets Authority (FMA) is launching a new campaign, Own Your Tomorrow, encouraging women to get more involved with their retirement savings plans.
"On average, women have about $27,000 and men have $32,000 in their KiwiSaver balances [at retirement]," FMA executive director of regulatory response Paul Gregory told Checkpoint on Tuesday.
"That's about a 20 percent deficit for women. But it's worse as you get older, because the effects are compounding, obviously. So the gap gets bigger as you get older," Gregory said.
"It just shows the advantages of starting early and sticking at it, and the benefits to women of being confident and participating in KiwiSaver."
Women on average live longer than men, but still retire with less. Asked how women could hope to overcome the societal factors that contribute to that - such as lower pay, taking parental leave and generally taking on more unpaid caring responsibilities than men - Gregory said the FMA was a regulator, not a policy maker.
"We focus very much on making sure that when you are involved in KiwiSaver that your providers are doing the right thing by you. But there are policy things which the policy makers can decide on… how women are disadvantaged by being out of KiwiSaver, to leave to work to have children and delay coming back."
In this year's Budget, the government said it would start paying 'employer' contributions to those receiving paid parental leave, to recognise "the unpaid nature of childcare and incentivises recipients of paid parental leave to save for their retirement".
Gregory said there was no evidence women were worse decision-makers when it came to money.
"Women actually do make good decisions and think well about investing in KiwiSaver. Our own surveys have shown that at a starting point, that they prefer simple products with lower fees with providers with high reputations that take an ethical approach," Gregory said.
"So it's not really an issue about the intellect that women are bringing to these decisions - it's the confidence… to bridge the gap between doing some research and actually making the decision to choose a provider, or perhaps to make sure they're in the right fund for them… it's about confidence and support, it's not necessarily about decision-making," he said.
"Men can be more confident about their own decisions and just go with it, whereas research shows women need to check round more, and they want more support for that decision."
Own Your Tomorrow will utilise the skills and knowledge of women in the investment industry, Gregory said.
