Workplace inequalities make it more difficult for women, disabled people and those from ethnic minority backgrounds to save for a comfortable retirement, according to Aideen Young, senior evidence manager of research, impact and voice at the Centre for Ageing Better.
In a blog post, Young discussed how the Centre for Ageing Better, State of Ageing report 2023/2024 highlighted the inadequate pension provision and low levels of savings that put many people in the UK at risk of financial insecurity and even poverty in their later lives.
She said: “Labour market inequalities across the life course play a key role. They mean that some groups have lower than average employment rates, are more likely to be self-employed, to have fragmented work histories, precarious work and fewer working hours and to experience pay gaps linked to their ethnicity and/or gender.
“All of these can lead to lower than average pay which in turn impacts ability to save, including into a personal or private pension, and determines whether the auto-enrolment threshold for workplace pensions is met. These factors also impact national insurance contributions with a knock-on effect on the amount of state pension received.”
Workplace inequalities
Young pointed out women, disabled people and those from ethnic minority backgrounds are the most susceptible to workplace inequalities.
She discussed how older women bear the consequences of fewer working hours and fragmented work histories across the life course due to caring first for their children, and later for other adults with 20 per cent of 55-59-year-old women acting as unpaid carers.
Young also highlighted how the gender pay gap has also been a factor for most women in the workplace.
Disabled and people with long-term health conditions are more likely to be out of work than the population in general, according to Young.
She said: “Sickness, injury or disability is the reason most commonly given by people aged 50-64 for being out of work but almost four in ten of these would like a job. So, while many are unable to work, some are prevented from doing so by disablism and working environments that don’t accommodate them.”
Young also expressed that people from minority ethnic backgrounds suffer multiple disadvantages in the labour market, because of both direct discrimination and indirect, structural factors, such as poor neighbourhoods, that create and maintain disadvantage.
According to Young, people from ethnic backgrounds are more likely to be employed in “non-professional” occupations with lower pay and are more likely to experience longer periods out of work.
Centre for Ageing Better data showed the employment rate of 50-64-year-old Bangladeshi men is almost ten percentage points lower than average for the age group.
Young also said people from ethnic minority backgrounds are subject to the ethnicity pay gap with women of Bangladeshi, Pakistani and mixed White and Black Caribbean heritage being paid 14.7 per cent, 11.8 per cent and 10.6 per cent less respectively than white British women.
“These workplace inequalities are writ large in the poverty data. These groups have the highest rates of poverty, are all under-pensioned and more likely to have no savings than the average,” she added.
