Women in the informal sector
Like sex, pension penetration for women brings joy, happiness, and financial independence during retirement or financial crisis.
Pension penetration refers to the extent to which women have access to and participate in pension plans or retirement savings programmes.
It specifically focuses on the coverage and inclusion of women in the pension system.
Data from the Ghana statistical Service (GSS) has shown a reduction in the average retirement age from 60 years to 58 years for males and 55 years for females.
Thus, pension for women’s financial independence is essential and crucial for the development of the nation at large.
According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), combining private and public sector sources, women aged 65 years and above receive 26% less income than men from the pension system.
The National Pensions Regulatory Authority (NPRA) launched the, “Women in Pensions” Initiative and events in the Northern region of the country.
The initiative aims at educating women on pensions and increasing women’s enrollment and contributions in pension schemes which are relatively less.
One of the challenges it identified was the disparities that exist in terms of the gender gap which needs to be bridged through targeted women’s group education on the relevance of retirement planning and old age poverty crisis.
Furthermore, moving to solve this challenge, it further stated that the Women in Pension initiative and events should be replicated across the country to stir up the enthusiasm of women to participate in penson schemes where public or private.
Also, women-friendly pension initiatives should be created by pension corporate trustees. Informal sector women including widows, single mothers, young girls, and the less privileged, etc. can be offered attractive incentives or equal or more benefits that are affordable for women.
The NPRA should also encourage Pension Trust Funds to render more women-friendly initiatives.
Women Entrepreneurship, Empowerment, and Women-led Small and Medium Scale Enterprises SME’s should be strongly encouraged and be willing to take it upon themselves to be part of the women’s development agenda for national development by educating, mentoring, training and employing more women in the informal sector to gain adequate income and develop financially to enroll on the 3-Tier of the pension contributory system.
Female entrepreneurs and women-led SMEs tend to create more jobs for women. They are, therefore key for bringing more women into the labour market for pension investment and national development. As Kwegyir Aggrey once said “When you educate a man, you educate an individual, but when you educate a woman; you educate a whole nation”, therefore women must take active steps to educate, mentor and support women to achieve financial independence through pensions.
By Olive Sika Pa Yeboah, Business/Gender Advocate