Voluntary contributions to superannuation are increasingly the preserve of the wealthy, with the percentage of the overall population with super in decline while the actual dollar amounts contributed rise.

Research from Monash University and CSIRO’s Superannuation Research Cluster shows that in the 10 years to 2012 those making pre-tax, or salary sacrifice, contributions declined from 24 per cent to 17 per cent of the number of people with super accounts.

Post-tax, or non-concessional, contributions fell from 15 per cent to 5 per cent over the period. Cluster leader, Professor Deborah Ralston, told The New Daily that while the data was nearly five years old, “the fall has been consistent over 10 years and there’s no reason to think that it would have changed”.

Contributions less popular. Source: Superannuation Research Cluster

Even if the number of voluntary contributors has not fallen further since 2012, the numbers making them remain significantly lower than in 2003.

Interestingly, while the percentage of women making voluntary contributions has also declined, the percentage of women making such voluntary contributions is actually higher than for men.

Despite this, women still have significantly lower super balances than men. Women also have lower average incomes and more interrupted working lives than men so their overall ability to contribute to super balances throughout their lives is far less than for men.

Meanwhile, while the number of people making voluntary contributions is on the slide, the value of voluntary contributions has been strong. This means that a smaller number of people with more cash to put aside account for an increasing percentage of voluntary contributions, which in turn makes the system more slanted towards the wealthy.

Pooled super voluntary contributions totalled $20.4 billion in 2016, down 13 per cent from a year earlier, according to APRA. That fall is likely to have been driven by the political debate around super changes making people less confident to put extra money aside.

A year earlier they were $23.16 billion and $16.09 billion in 2010. So over time their value has risen, not fallen.

But these figures don’t cover self-managed super funds, which are regulated by the Australian Taxation Office, not APRA, and have undergone a significant boom. ATO figures show voluntary contributions to SMSFs totalled $25.9 billion in 2014-5 compared to $19.1 billion three years earlier.

SMSFs have only about 1 million members whereas the rest of the super system has about 12 million individual members. So, as the following table shows, SMSFs account for over half of voluntary contributions with less than 10 per cent of members.

SMSFs dominate voluntary contributions. Source: ATO

The question is, why are more people choosing not to make voluntary contributions? Nicky Hutley, chief economist with research group Urbis, told The New Daily that rising property prices mean people are having to put more money aside for house deposits, eating into their savings capacity.

Losses experienced in super during the global financial crisis have also frightened investors.

“A lot of people had bad experiences with the GFC and they are not happy to put extra savings into super,” she said.

“Low wages growth and the increasing casualisation of the workforce are also factors. They eat into everything, reducing people’s capacity to save.”

Professor Ralston said her research also showed that women are more likely than men to seek advice over the phone on dealing with their super balances. But the advent of online advice means younger men are increasingly more likely to seek advice.

Men are also more likely to change their superannuation investment options than women.