Fathers would like to work less
After the birth of a child, many parents in Switzerland reduce their workload. Mothers then continue to work an average of 54 per cent of the time, compared to 93 per cent for fathers. This is one of several facts that lead to the so-called Gender Pension Gap, the difference in pensions between the sexes.
The insurance company Swiss Life has analysed this gap in a recent study. In particular, it has endeavoured to determine how the gender pension gap will develop in the coming years - in other words, how today's employees will fare when they retire. In addition to a representative population survey of 4029 people aged between 25 and 64, Swiss Life also referred to data from the Federal Statistical Office.
What is striking is that people between the ages of 25 and 34, i.e. those for whom starting a family is the most important issue, are the least likely to take care of their own pension provision. This only becomes important with increasing age.
Cohabitation is also seen as a rather new threat to the gender pension gap. Between 2010 and 2022, the number of couples who have children under the age of 5 and are unmarried doubled. Meanwhile, 20 per cent of couples decide to have children without a marriage certificate.
Once the children are out, mothers still work less
With an average workload of 58 per cent, mothers who are cohabiting work slightly more than those who are married (45 per cent), but significantly less than unmarried fathers (89 per cent). In the event of separation or the death of a partner, unmarried mothers are significantly less well protected, as they are not entitled to a widow's pension and only receive contributions from the pension fund if they are officially registered as beneficiaries. Swiss Life therefore recommends that women in this situation take measures such as paying more into pillar 3a or investing elsewhere. A cohabitation agreement is also a good idea, setting out how the joint investments and savings will be divided in the event of separation or death.
Mothers still work less than fathers even when their children are over 18 or have left home. Although the difference in workload between men and women is steadily decreasing, it is still 31 per cent for parents of children over the age of 18 and 17 per cent for parents whose children no longer live at home.
What is also striking about the results of the study is that Swiss parents do not work as much as they would like to. While mothers would prefer to work a little more (58 per cent instead of the actual 54 per cent), fathers would like to work significantly less. Instead of the 93 per cent that fathers work on average, they would like to work only 74 per cent.
«This discrepancy between «ideal» and actual gender differences indicates that it is not only preferences or social role models that are responsible for gender-specific patterns in the labour market, but also constraints,» writes Swiss Life in the study.
A key finding of the study is that although gender-specific workload differences will continue to decrease over the years, they will not disappear completely.
