Pensions vary significantly between genders across Europe

Although the gap has narrowed by 5 percentage points over the last decade, women over the age of 65 still receive an average pension 29 per cent lower than males in the European Union. Meanwhile, the gender pension gap in Hungary was 10 per cent, according to a recent Eurostat survey.

According to the EU’s statistical office, the average pension for men was higher across Europe than for women. The average variation across the Member States was 29 per cent in 2019, writes vg.hu.

The gap between old-age benefits was widest in Luxembourg, where women generally receive 44 per cent less old-age benefits than men.

They were followed by Malta and the Netherlands with 40 per cent, followed by Cyprus with a 39 per cent difference in the pensions of ladies and gentlemen over the age of 65. But there were also significant differences between Austria (37 per cent) and Germany (36 per cent).

In contrast, the mildest gender contrast in old-age benefits was measured in Estonia, where the difference was only two per cent in 2019. On the leaderboard, they were followed by Denmark with a 7 per cent difference,

while Hungary came in third with a 10 per cent difference in the average pension of women and men.

Similarly, there were smaller differences in old-age benefits in Slovakia (11 per cent), and a 20.4 per cent difference was found in Poland.

One in seven retirees was at risk of impoverishment in the EU.

While in the EU, in 2018, 14.5 per cent of elderly people lived on the brink of marginalisation, by 2019, their proportion had risen to 15.1 per cent. In the case of women, the numbers were 3-4 percentage points higher here as well. 

In Hungary, more than one in ten retirees, 11.3 per cent of them, lived on the brink of poverty, which was 3.8 percentage points below the EU average.

The fewest senior citizens in difficult situations were found in Luxembourg at 7 per cent, and they were followed by Slovakia, France, and Denmark, each with 9 per cent. In contrast, more than one in two retirees had problems in Latvia (54 per cent) and Estonia (51 per cent), followed by Bulgaria (36 per cent).

• Hungary might be the worst place to be pensioner – Statistics
• LMP: Hungarian minimum pension of 79 euros per month is not enough

Source: vg.hu