Pensions: the gap between men and women is narrowing

This bodes well for many women. At a key age for the constitution of pension rights, women of the 1970s generations are as fast as men on the road that leads them to obtaining a full pension, reveals a study published Tuesday morning.

“Between 35 and 44 years, women of the 1970 generations validate as many quarters as men”, underlines the direction of research, studies, evaluation and statistics (Drees), attached to the health and social ministries.

Extension of the duration of studies

The statistics department looked at a sample of contributors to around sixty pension schemes to better understand where the French people, born between 1946 and 1994, were in the course of their careers, in the acquisition of their rights to a full basic pension . And this, taking into account the rights acquired until the end of 2017.

The study shows that with the lengthening of the duration of studies and the difficulties of entering the labor market, the “average duration of insurance for retirement validated at age 30 fell sharply between the 1950 and 1976 generations » to stagnate around 32 quarters for the following generations.

However, the decline seems to have bottomed out. And the gaps between men and women, in terms of validating the quarters necessary to obtain a pension without a discount, have narrowed over time, against a background of increasing participation of women in the labor market.

Compensation for Housewives

Admittedly, women more often have more choppy careers than men because more of them stop working to take care of their children. However, they can “validate quarters”, thanks to the old-age insurance for stay-at-home parents (AVPF) which was created in 1972 and whose number of beneficiaries was expanded from 1985, notes the study.

Result: women born in 1968 had validated 63 quarters for the age group between 30 and 49 years. This is almost two years gained compared to the women of the 1946 generation. The women of this 1968 generation have also closed the gap which separated them from the men born the same year in terms of average duration of validated insurance. This gap was 8 quarters between men and women of the 1946 generation.

Decline at end of career

These trends give hope that women who stop working in the future to enjoy their old age will not necessarily have a later and less generous retirement than men.

The study notes, however, that the rate of validation of quarters decreases at the end of the career. In addition, the share of individuals who do not validate any quarter between 50 and 59 years “decreases over the generations, but remains higher than for the previous age groups”, notes the DREES.