Chancellor Jeremy Hunt’s recent Budget had significant implications for pensions, with the abolition of the lifetime allowance and increases to the money purchase annual allowance and annual allowance. However, another important reform – the provision of free childcare hours for children from nine months old – could also help to reduce the gender pension gap, albeit in a more indirect way.
The gender pension gap is a significant issue, with women typically receiving smaller pensions than men due to a range of factors such as lower pay, career breaks, and caring responsibilities. However, the provision of free childcare hours could help to address some of these issues by enabling women to continue working and contributing to their pensions.
By providing more support for working parents, free childcare hours could help to reduce the impact of career breaks and enable women to continue working and earning income. This could help to boost pension savings and reduce the gap between men and women’s pensions.
The provision of free childcare hours could also help to address some of the cultural and societal factors that contribute to the gender pension gap. For example, by providing greater support for working parents, it could help to challenge the notion that women should be primarily responsible for childcare.
While the impact of free childcare hours on the gender pension gap is likely to be relatively modest in the short