Women’s superannuation balances near retirement lag those of men by virtually the same amount as they did 10 years ago, according to new research from Roy Morgan.

Roy Morgan found that while super balances for both men and women intending to retire during the next year had more than doubled in a decade, the relativities between the balances of men and women remain virtually unchanged.

Men planning an imminent retirement had average balances of $309,000 compared with $143,000 in 2008. For women the current figure was $177,000 compared with $79,000 10 years ago.

Current balances for females equate to 57.3 per cent of the average for men, compared with 55.2 per cent in 2008.

“Despite a great deal of publicity being given to this issue over the last decade, in an attempt to close the gender gap in superannuation, there has been no real progress,” Roy Morgan director Norman Morris said.

“Despite real gains in employment for women over the last decade, they still lag males in terms of full-time and overall employment levels,” Mr Morris said.

That results in overall lower income levels for females – a difference Roy Morgan estimates at 25 per cent.

“It is likely to take some considerable time and changes to superannuation conditions for females to achieve an adequate level of superannuation more equivalent to their male counterparts,” Mr Morris said.

CEO of Women in Super Sandra Buckley told The New Daily: “I’m not surprised by the figures. Nothing will change without changes to the whole super system.”

“The system is based on full-time, long-term workers who have earnings growing over their working lives,” she said.

Women take an average of five years out of the workforce to care for children and work part time for 10 to 12 years to work in with caring duties, she said.

“One-third of women are still retiring with no super. Many live in poverty in retirement and are heavily reliant on the pension system,” Ms Buckley said.

To reform the system “we need to reduce the tax concessions going to the upper end of income earners and apply them to the lower end”, she said.

A proposal from Women in Super would mean the government paid an extra $1000 a year into the super funds of people earning less than $37,000 who also had less than $100,000 in their funds.

“That measure could add about 15 per cent to 20 per cent extra to the retirement funds of many women and give them some dignity in retirement and some money to use as they chose.”

Ms Buckley quoted an example where a woman who would retire now with $205,000 in her account would have had $235,000 if the measure was taken up; an increase of 15 per cent.

Currently the top 20 per cent of income earners get $15.5 billion worth of super tax concessions, while the system as a whole costs $30 billion in concessions, she said.

“The bottom 40 per cent get no concessional tax benefits at all,” Ms Buckley said.

Under Women in Super’s proposal, top-earner concessions would be reduced slightly, with the savings devoted to boosting the super balances of low-income earners, she said.

There would be no net cost to the government in funding it.