Forget the pension lectures – Gen Z women need to know what’s in it for them

I think there is something strange about being in your twenties and being told to start planning for retirement. I’m still trying to work out what I’m doing next weekend, let alone what I want my life to look like in 40 or 50 years’ time. And yet, apparently, this is exactly when I should be thinking about my pension with experts telling us the sooner we can start saving, the better. I’m not oblivious to the importance of saving for my future. I have been fortunate enough to grow up with a dad who instilled in me from a relatively young age that paying into a pension as early as possible was a good idea. I’ve also spent a fair amount of my professional life writing and talking about pensions, so I’m probably more aware than most people my age of why it matters. But I still find it difficult to get my head around. When you’re in your twenties, retirement feels so far away that it’s almost impossible to connect the money disappearing from your payslip every month with the person you might be when you’re 65. Particularly when there are so many other things competing for your attention, and, more importantly, your money. For many young people, getting through the month, saving for a house deposit or simply having enough money to enjoy themselves feels considerably more pressing than putting money towards a retirement that is decades away. Perhaps there is some truth in the fact that the Gen Z generation have a slightly more live-for-today mentality, but it’s important to understand why.We’re living through a pretty challenging time financially. We’ve come through Covid, we’re navigating a cost of living crisis, rent and house prices feel increasingly unattainable, and there’s a general sense of uncertainty about what the future is going to look like. For me, personally, I was unwell for a while, spending a lot of time last year in hospital, and it completely changed my relationship with money. When you’re going through something difficult, particularly when you don’t know what the future holds, your priorities shift. I found myself wanting to spend money, enjoy experiences and make memories because, at times, I genuinely didn’t know what tomorrow was going to look like. And I don’t think that feeling is necessarily unique to me. When the present feels uncertain, the future can feel incredible distant, sometimes even impossible to plan for. On the other hand, my work has changed my perspective too. I’m regularly exposed to stories of women who have reached retirement age and are now struggling financially because they haven’t been able to put enough aside throughout their working lives. The latest figures from Scottish Widows’ Women and Retirement Report show that women’s projected median retirement income has risen to £14,500 a year, an increase of £1,500 on last year’s projections. The gap between men and women has also narrowed from £6,000 to £3,800. Although that’s genuinely positive news, the overall picture is rather less encouraging. Just 27 per cent of women are on track for a comfortable retirement, while 33 per cent risk retirement poverty. But lecturing young women, in particular, doesn’t feel like an effective way to get people saving. Seeing such numbers in black and white is a far more effective tool to get me saving for retirement whilst still enjoying myself at the same time too. It helps to show that pensions aren’t just numbers on a payslip or something you automatically get enrolled into when you start a job. They’re about having independence and a good quality of life when you’re older. Making pensions seem even more complicated than they already is not the way get young people saving. We need to make financial education much more accessible, engaging and, dare I say it, interesting. I would love there to be more emphasis on pensions when starting a job, rather than another document buried somewhere in an onboarding pack that nobody actually reads. Show someone what their pension contributions could mean in real terms. Explain how much difference starting early can make. Use relatable examples, real stories and the platforms where younger generations are already spending their time. Scottish Widows’ research suggests that women aged 18 to 34 who find retirement tools helpful are almost twice as likely to expect to maintain their standard of living in retirement as those who don’t use them (38 per cent compared with 19 per cent). I also think we need to stop making young women feel guilty for not having their entire financial futures mapped out by the age of 26. There are systemic issues at play here, from the gender pay gap and unpaid caring responsibilities to career breaks, illness and relationship breakdowns. For me, the biggest shift has been realising that saving for retirement isn’t about sacrificing your life today for some distant version of yourself. It’s about giving that future version of yourself choices. I still want to go on holiday. I still want to go out for dinner, enjoy my 20s and spend money making memories. I don’t think those things have to be mutually exclusive with being financially responsible. Young women don’t need another lecture about why they should care about retirement. We need someone to explain why it should matter to us now, in a way that actually resonates with the lives we’re living.