THE National Pensioners Convention has called for an end to the gender gap in pensions and pay to ensure female workers don’t fall into the same poverty trap as their grandmothers.

More than one in five women pensioners in the UK are estimated to live in poverty compared to one in six men.

Research by the Pension Policy Institute found that  on average, women retire with pension savings of £69,000, compared with £205,000 for men.  

The pension gap is largely due to older women in their late 70s and above who retired before 2016 with much lower state pensions, as well as lower occupational pensions from taking time out of work for family responsibilities.  

NPC general secretary Jan Shortt said: “The NPC is campaigning for everyone who retires — no matter their age, gender or contributions — to receive the same basic state pension, set at 70 per cent of the living wage and above the official poverty level.”

She added that striving to bridge the gender pay gap to allow more women to afford higher personal pension contributions is equally important, and “something any decent society should be committed to.”