{"id":110350,"date":"2025-05-18T00:27:09","date_gmt":"2025-05-18T00:27:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/110350\/"},"modified":"2025-05-18T00:27:09","modified_gmt":"2025-05-18T00:27:09","slug":"divorced-women-180k-worse-off-than-men-as-pension-pots-overlooked-uk-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/110350\/","title":{"rendered":"Divorced women \u00a3180k worse off than men as pension pots overlooked | UK | News"},"content":{"rendered":"

Divorcees<\/a> are urging others going through a separation not to overlook pension<\/a> pots, as women are being left \u00a3180,000 worse off.<\/p>\n

Danielle Burke, a 45-year-old single parent, is pleading with women not to repeat her mistakes after her husband\u2019s pension<\/a> pot wasn\u2019t even mentioned during their divorce.<\/p>\n

On average, divorced women have pension savings of just \u00a326,100, compared to \u00a3205,800 for divorced men – a \u201cshocking\u201d gap of \u00a3179,700.<\/p>\n

This disparity means women would need to work an additional 12 years after reaching retirement age to catch up, and single mothers face working an extra 33 years.<\/p>\n

Despite typically being the second-largest asset after a home, pensions are frequently overlooked in divorce proceedings. This leaves many divorcees, especially women, at risk of inadequate retirement funds.<\/p>\n

Danielle endured a painful divorce after discovering her husband was having an affair. He later left the country, abandoning her and their child. Because they were considered young parents at the time, her lawyers assumed pensions weren\u2019t relevant and failed to address them.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt wasn’t even discussed, and it wasn’t something that I had at the top of my head because my main priority was my daughter at the time,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Danielle explained that she spent most of the divorce \u201cdealing with the emotional side\u201d and didn\u2019t think about pensions – nor did anyone bring it up.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was just more concerned about the overall settlement. What was gonna happen to the house? What was gonna happen to me? Where were we going to live? I needed to find a new job as I was still on maternity leave.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now divorced for several years, Danielle says the pension from her former marriage is something she\u2019ll \u201cno longer be able to gain.\u201d She is now urging \u201cother divorced women to be made aware of it.\u201d<\/p>\n

She added: \u201cGet the figures, get the facts.\u201d<\/p>\n

The 2025 Underpensioned Report, released this month by Now Pensions in partnership with the Pensions Policy Institute (PPI), aims to raise awareness about future financial security.<\/p>\n

Since the introduction of auto enrolment in 2012, over 11 million people have joined workplace pension schemes. But many people in underpensioned groups don\u2019t meet the eligibility requirements – meaning they miss out on the chance to save.<\/p>\n

As a result, these individuals must rely more heavily on the State Pension<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Now Pensions is calling for policy reforms to close the pension gap. Among their proposals are: ensuring pension assets are included in every divorce settlement and removing the \u00a310,000 earnings threshold for autoenrolment.<\/p>\n

Samantha Gould, the report’s lead author and a single mother herself, drew on her own divorce experience while conducting the research.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese are massive and scary figures,\u201d Samantha said. \u201cTypically, women come out of work to look after children, with our research showing mothers spend an average of 10 years away from the workforce to raise families.\u201d<\/p>\n

She explained that this time out of work alone results in a pension shortfall of tens of thousands of pounds for women.<\/p>\n

Like Danielle, Samantha said divorcees tend to focus on \u201ctheir immediate needs,\u201d such as keeping a house near their child\u2019s school to avoid disruption.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey might consider a pension, but it’s very low down on the list.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now Pensions is pushing for pensions to be a standard consideration in every divorce, aiming to give single parents a more secure financial future.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Divorcees are urging others going through a separation not to overlook pension pots, as women are being left…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":110351,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3093],"tags":[51,1806,474,2074,50078,2499,50080,1786,16,15,50079],"class_list":{"0":"post-110350","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-personal-finance","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-divorce","10":"tag-finance","11":"tag-pension","12":"tag-pension-gap","13":"tag-personal-finance","14":"tag-policy-reforms","15":"tag-state-pension","16":"tag-uk","17":"tag-united-kingdom","18":"tag-womens-financial-security"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114526004379394781","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110350","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=110350"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110350\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/110351"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=110350"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=110350"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=110350"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}