The gender pension gap still exists, so what can women do to fill it?

Here financial planner Rowan Harding explains retirement inequality and the simple steps to take now

- By LAUREN TAYLOR

Women already have a gender pay gap to contend with but experts say that's also one of the factors leading to financial inequality in retirement.

Scottish Widows's 2025 Women and Retirement Report found that the gender pension gap is actually growing and is now at 32 per cent.

Women are on track to finish work with an average annual retirement income of £13,000, compared to men's £19,000. So why is this happening?

Rowan Harding DipPFS, a financial planner at Path Financial, points out that a heavier burden of caring responsibilities (of children and older generations) is more likely to fall to women.

"There are individuals - and predominantly it tends to be women more than men - where they will have periods where they are not in paid work," she said.

"They might still be 'working', but it's not paid in a formal sense, and that tends to leave those individuals, and as I say, probably more women, with less ability to put aside money for the longer-term future."