Sun Life finds confidence gap, not pay, drives women’s lower workplace retirement savings
Women in Canadian workplace plans retire with 27 percent less saved than men, even though they live longer and spend more of their lives in poor health, according to Sun Life’s internal Member Mindsets, Motivations and Metrics research.
Sun Life reports that women in its workplace plans retire with average savings of $164,000, compared with $225,000 for men.
The firm notes that Canadian women in 2024 earned 88 cents for every dollar earned by men, took parental leave more often and more than half carried most caregiving responsibilities at some point in their careers.
But the analysis finds that the savings gap within plans goes beyond earnings.
When Sun Life overlays survey responses with plan data, women consistently make less use of employer matching than men across household income, age and earner status.
Among households earning under $70,000, 30 percent of women in the research maximize their employer match, compared with 40 percent of men.
At $200,000 and above, 45 percent of women maximize the match versus 57 percent of men.
Gaps also appear in simply receiving any match, reaching 16 percentage points at the highest income band.
By age, the sharpest difference shows up in the 35–44 group, where Sun Life reports match maximization of 39 percent for women and 57 percent for men—an 18‑point gap during prime career years.
The company describes this as a “retirement security gap that compounds over time.”
Sun Life’s review of primary, secondary, equal and sole earners shows the same direction of gap in each group.
Secondary‑earner women in the sample contribute 2.5 percentage points less of salary than comparable men, and female primary earners contribute 2.1 percentage points less than male primary earners.
The firm notes that plan design and matching structures may influence these differences, but concludes that “women are leaving money on the table.”
In its Member Mindsets segmentation, Sun Life identifies four investor profiles based on financial knowledge and confidence: Sophisticated Investors, Overconfident Investors, Cautious Investors and Cautious Experts.
Sophisticated Investors and Cautious Experts both score high on literacy, but Sophisticated Investors have accumulated investable assets worth 3.9 times annual income, compared with 2.1 times for Cautious Experts.
According to Sun Life, confidence drives 64 percent higher savings outcomes, while knowledge alone adds 12 percent.
Women in the survey appear more often in low‑confidence groups and less often among sophisticated investors.
Sun Life argues that if confidence, rather than literacy, holds members back, interventions that build confidence may be critical to closing the gap.
