IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/gri/fpaper/finance200904.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Case for Gender-Sensitive Superannuation Plan Design

Author

Listed:
  • Anup K. Basu
  • Michael E. Drew

Abstract

A key feature of superannuation plan design is the assumption that members have long and continuous periods of employment over which contributions are made. This heroic design feature has led to debate on the adequacy of superannuation plans for those with interrupted employment, particularly the adverse impacts this has on the retirement income prospects of women. This paper employs non‐parametric stochastic simulation to investigate two possible solutions to gender inequality in superannuation, higher contribution rates and more aggressive asset allocation. Our results suggest that while both these strategies in isolation are effective in reducing the current gender disparity in superannuation outcomes, they demand significant changes to current arrangements when employed individually to address the problem. A combined approach is found to be more powerful in ensuring a more equitable superannuation outcome for women, as it nullifies the relative disadvantage of interrupted employment with only modest changes to contribution rates and asset allocation.
(This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)

Suggested Citation

  • Anup K. Basu & Michael E. Drew, 2009. "The Case for Gender-Sensitive Superannuation Plan Design," Discussion Papers in Finance finance:200904, Griffith University, Department of Accounting, Finance and Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:gri:fpaper:finance:200904
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://research-repository.griffith.edu.au/bitstream/handle/10072/390414/2009-04-case-for-gender-sensitive-superannuation-plan-design.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Mehra, Rajnish & Prescott, Edward C., 1985. "The equity premium: A puzzle," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 15(2), pages 145-161, March.
    2. James J. Choi & David Laibson & Brigitte C. Madrian & Andrew Metrick, 2004. "For Better or for Worse: Default Effects and 401(k) Savings Behavior," NBER Chapters, in: Perspectives on the Economics of Aging, pages 81-126, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Preston, A. & Austen, S, 2001. "Women, superannuation and the SGC," Australian Bulletin of Labour, National Institute of Labour Studies, vol. 27(4), pages 272-295.
    4. Bajtelsmit, Vickie L. & Bernasek, Alexandra & Jianakoplos, Nancy A., 1999. "Gender differences in defined contribution pension decisions," Financial Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 8(1), pages 1-10.
    5. Blake, David & Lehmann, Bruce N & Timmermann, Allan, 1999. "Asset Allocation Dynamics and Pension Fund Performance," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 72(4), pages 429-461, October.
    6. Merrin Thompson, 1999. "Women and Retirement Income in Australia: Social Rights, Industrial Rights and Property Rights," Discussion Papers 0098, University of New South Wales, Social Policy Research Centre.
    7. Fama, Eugene F. & French, Kenneth R., 1988. "Dividend yields and expected stock returns," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 22(1), pages 3-25, October.
    8. Dwyer, Peggy D. & Gilkeson, James H. & List, John A., 2002. "Gender differences in revealed risk taking: evidence from mutual fund investors," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 76(2), pages 151-158, July.
    9. Therese Jefferson, 2005. "Women and Retirement Incomes in Australia: A Review," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 81(254), pages 273-291, September.
    10. Philippe Jorion & William N. Goetzmann, 1999. "Global Stock Markets in the Twentieth Century," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 54(3), pages 953-980, June.
    11. Philippe Artzner & Freddy Delbaen & Jean‐Marc Eber & David Heath, 1999. "Coherent Measures of Risk," Mathematical Finance, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 9(3), pages 203-228, July.
    12. Alexandra Bernasek & Stephanie Shwiff, 2001. "Gender, Risk, and Retirement," Journal of Economic Issues, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 35(2), pages 345-356, June.
    13. Gerrans, Paul & Clark-Murphy, Marilyn, 2004. "Gender differences in retirement savings decisions," Journal of Pension Economics and Finance, Cambridge University Press, vol. 3(2), pages 145-164, July.
    14. Henrik Cronqvist & Richard H. Thaler, 2004. "Design Choices in Privatized Social-Security Systems: Learning from the Swedish Experience," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(2), pages 424-428, May.
    15. Poterba, James M. & Summers, Lawrence H., 1988. "Mean reversion in stock prices : Evidence and Implications," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 22(1), pages 27-59, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Wei-Ting Pan, 2016. "The Impact of Mandatory Savings on Life Cycle Consumption and Portfolio Choice," PhD Thesis, Finance Discipline Group, UTS Business School, University of Technology, Sydney, number 32, July-Dece.
    2. Robert J. Bianchi & Michael E. Drew & Adam N. Walk & Osei K. Wiafe, 2016. "Retirement Adequacy of Indigenous Australians: A Baseline Study," Economic Papers, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 35(4), pages 359-374, December.
    3. Rohan Best & Noura Saba, 2021. "Quantifying Australia’s Gender Superannuation Gap," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 97(318), pages 410-423, September.
    4. Wei-Ting Pan, 2016. "The Impact of Mandatory Savings on Life Cycle Consumption and Portfolio Choice," PhD Thesis, Finance Discipline Group, UTS Business School, University of Technology, Sydney, number 2-2016, January-A.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Marilyn Clark-Murphy & Craig P. Speelman, 2007. "Decision Making Clusters in Retirement Savings: Preliminary Findings," Australian Journal of Labour Economics (AJLE), Bankwest Curtin Economics Centre (BCEC), Curtin Business School, vol. 10(2), pages 115-127.
    2. Marilyn Clark-Murphy & Paul Gerrans & Craig Speelman, 2009. "Return Chasing as a Driver in Individual Retirement Savings Investment Choices: Evidence from Australia," Journal of Family and Economic Issues, Springer, vol. 30(1), pages 4-19, March.
    3. Basu, Anup K. & Drew, Michael E., 2010. "The appropriateness of default investment options in defined contribution plans: Australian evidence," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 18(3), pages 290-305, June.
    4. Roelof Salomons, 2008. "A Theoretical And Practical Perspective On The Equity Risk Premium," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 22(2), pages 299-329, April.
    5. Craig Speelman & Marilyn Clark-Murphy & Paul Gerrans, 2013. "Decision Making Clusters in Retirement Savings: Gender Differences Dominate," Journal of Family and Economic Issues, Springer, vol. 34(3), pages 329-339, September.
    6. Blake, David & Cairns, Andrew & Dowd, Kevin, 2008. "Turning pension plans into pension planes: What investment strategy designers of defined contribution pension plans can learn from commercial aircraft designers," MPRA Paper 33749, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    7. De Long, J Bradford & Andrei Shleifer & Lawrence H. Summers & Robert J. Waldmann, 1990. "Noise Trader Risk in Financial Markets," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 98(4), pages 703-738, August.
    8. Bonomo, Marco & Garcia, Rene, 1996. "Consumption and equilibrium asset pricing: An empirical assessment," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 3(3), pages 239-265, September.
    9. Prat, Georges, 2013. "Equity risk premium and time horizon: What do the U.S. secular data say?," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 34(C), pages 76-88.
    10. Tansel Yilmazer & Angela Lyons, 2010. "Marriage and the Allocation of Assets in Women’s Defined Contribution Plans," Journal of Family and Economic Issues, Springer, vol. 31(2), pages 121-137, June.
    11. Lo, Andrew W & Wang, Jiang, 1995. "Implementing Option Pricing Models When Asset Returns Are Predictable," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 50(1), pages 87-129, March.
    12. John Y. Campbell & John Cochrane, 1999. "Force of Habit: A Consumption-Based Explanation of Aggregate Stock Market Behavior," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 107(2), pages 205-251, April.
    13. Fredj Jawadi & Georges Prat, 2017. "Equity prices and fundamentals: a DDM–APT mixed approach," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 49(3), pages 661-695, October.
    14. García-Huitrón, Manuel & Impavido, Gregorio & Lasagabaster, Esperanza, 2010. "New Policies for Mandatory Defined Contribution Pensions: Industrial Organization Models and Investment Products," IDB Publications (Books), Inter-American Development Bank, number 365, November.
    15. Salomons, Roelof, 2004. "Expert something sensible: putting US returns in an international perspective," Research Report 04E02, University of Groningen, Research Institute SOM (Systems, Organisations and Management).
    16. Mordecai Kurz & Hehui Jin & Maurizio Motolese, 2005. "Determinants of stock market volatility and risk premia," Annals of Finance, Springer, vol. 1(2), pages 109-147, July.
    17. Gerrans, Paul & Moulang, Carly & Feng, Jun & Strydom, Maria, 2018. "Individual and peer effects in retirement savings investment choices," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 47(C), pages 150-165.
    18. Paul Gerrans & Marilyn Clark‐Murphy & Craig Speelman, 2010. "Asset allocation and age effects in retirement savings choices," Accounting and Finance, Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 50(2), pages 301-319, June.
    19. Nengjiu Ju & Jianjun Miao, 2012. "Ambiguity, Learning, and Asset Returns," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 80(2), pages 559-591, March.
    20. Rodriguez, Juan Carlos, 2006. "Consumption, the persistence of shocks, and asset price volatility," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 53(8), pages 1741-1760, November.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Superannuation; Gender;

    JEL classification:

    • J26 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Retirement; Retirement Policies

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gri:fpaper:finance:200904. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Dr. Alexandr Akimov (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/segriau.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.