Sweden’s female-dominated professions tend to offer lower pay than male-dominated ones, while part-time work and lower hourly wages contribute to pension disparities between men and women, Swedish Pensions Agency (SPA) pension expert, Monica Zettervall, has said.

In a blog post, Zettervall emphasised that if women worked the same number of hours and with the same pay as men, the pension would be equal.

“The average total pension for men living in Sweden is SEK 25,200 per month before tax. For women, it is SEK 18,600 per month. Women thus have an average pension of SEK 6,600, or 26 per cent, lower per month than men,” Zettervall explained.

“The difference between men's and women's pensions is evening out, but it is slow. Working life and parenthood are still unequal, and this leads to unequal pensions because what affects the future pension is the income throughout life.”

In addition to this, Zettervall explained that in Sweden care of children has virtually no effect on the size of future pension.

She said that those savers who have young children and are worried about how the care of children affects their future can “stop worrying now”.

Meanwhile, she pointed out that analysis from the Swedish Social Insurance Agency showed that women's income is affected more than men's by having children.

“It takes five years after the baby is born before women have as high an average income as they had the year before the baby was born,” Zettervall stated.

“But how the parents share the parental benefit is also important. Women who take all or almost all parental benefit have poorer income development than women who take out a smaller share of parental benefit.”

Additionally, she said that other possible explanations for the poorer income development are unpaid leave and part-time work, which ultimately affects the size of the pension.

Zettervall offered some guidance to women to help with their future pension accrual, including working full-time or sharing part-time work, ensuring savers have a workplace occupational pension even when on parental leave, and reviewing survivors’ protection.

She also said that savers should see if their partner can transfer their premium pension, work longer if they have the opportunity, and start saving for the partner on a lower income.

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