Media Release

Retirement savings improving but still a savings gap for many

The Association of Superannuation Funds Australia (ASFA) today released new data on the retirement savings needed at various ages to achieve a comfortable standard of living in retirement, together with data on the superannuation balance for the average Australian male and female at various ages. 

The analysis indicates that while those on a wage of $90,000 a year will potentially achieve the level of savings required to support a retirement lifestyle at the ASFA Comfortable level, this will require Super Guarantee (SG) contributions at the rate of 12 per cent of wages for around 35 continuous years. For an individual on $65,000 a year, SG contributions at 12 per cent would be needed for around 45 years. 

Women generally have lower super balances than men, with the gap starting to widen from age 30 onwards. Leading up to retirement age, the median super balance for women is around 25 per cent lower than for men. 

ASFA has long advocated for policy measures to reduce the retirement savings gender gap. 

“A key reason for the retirement savings gender gap is women taking time out of the workforce, or working reduced hours, to have and raise children,” said ASFA Deputy CEO, Glen McCrea. 

“Compulsory super should be extended to paid parental leave (PPL), including the Government’s PPL scheme.” 

ASFA has separately advocated for a ‘Super Baby Bonus’, whereby the Government would deposit $5,000 into the superannuation account of women upon the birth of a child. 

“In addition, for women who return to work on reduced hours, extending the Low-Income Superannuation Tax Offset (LISTO) would also boost super balances of low-income earners,” said Mr McCrea. 

The LISTO is a government payment that effectively refunds tax paid on super contributions. ASFA considers that the upper threshold should be raised to $45,000 and that the maximum payment be increased accordingly to $700. This change would increase the number of women benefiting from the scheme from around 1.4 million to around 1.9 million per year. 

ASFA’s Super Guru website also provides extensive information on the options available for individuals to top up their superannuation savings. There are a variety of tax concessions and co-contributions available that can potentially help individuals to boost their retirement savings. 

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Access details of the superannuation balance needed to meet the ASFA Comfortable Retirement Standard here and for balances at various ages for the average male and female here

 

For further information, please contact:
ASFA Media team: 0451 949 300

About ASFA
ASFA is the peak policy, research and advocacy body for Australia’s superannuation industry. It is a not-for-profit, sector-neutral, and non-party political, national organisation. ASFA’s mission is to continuously improve the superannuation system, so all Australians can enjoy a comfortable and dignified retirement.


Carmen Beverley-Smith

Executive Director - Superannuation, Life & Private Health Insurance, APRA

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Keynote 8 – Navigating the energy transition: opportunities, investor strategies and policy needs

Carmen joined APRA in March 2023 and holds the role of Executive Director, Life and Private Health Insurance and Superannuation.  

She has had an esteemed career in financial services, spanning over 25 years. She has held diverse leadership roles at Westpac and Commonwealth Bank of Australia, including across risk, transformation and change, product and portfolio development, and sales and service. 

Prior to joining APRA, she held the role of General Manager, Risk Transformation Delivery Integration at Westpac. This involved leading the group-wide implementation of a suite of solutions to uplift risk management capability and develop data, analytics and reporting. 

Carmen leads with a values-driven approach and a particular interest in developing and mentoring talent. 

She holds a Bachelor of Commerce and Accounting, is a certified Chartered Accountant and a Graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors. 

Amy C. Edmondson

Novartis Professor of Leadership and Management, Harvard Business School

Sessions

Keynote 8 – Navigating the energy transition: opportunities, investor strategies and policy needs

Amy C. Edmondson is the Novartis Professor of Leadership and Management at the Harvard Business School, a chair established to support the study of human interactions that lead to the creation of successful enterprises that contribute to the betterment of society.

Edmondson has been recognized by the biannual Thinkers50 global ranking of management thinkers since 2011, and most recently was ranked #1 in 2021 and 2023; she also received that organization’s Breakthrough Idea Award in 2019, and Talent Award in 2017.  She studies teaming, psychological safety, and organisational learning, and her articles have been published in numerous academic and management outlets, including Administrative Science Quarterly, Academy of Management Journal, Harvard Business Review and California Management Review. Her 2019 book, The Fearless Organization: Creating Psychological Safety in the Workplace for Learning, Innovation and Growth (Wiley), has been translated into 15 languages. Her prior books – Teaming: How organizations learn, innovate and compete in the knowledge economy (Jossey-Bass, 2012), Teaming to Innovate (Jossey-Bass, 2013) and Extreme Teaming (Emerald, 2017) – explore teamwork in dynamic organisational environments. In Building the future: Big teaming for audacious innovation (Berrett-Koehler, 2016), she examines the challenges and opportunities of teaming across industries to build smart cities. 

Edmondson’s latest book, Right Kind of Wrong (Atria), builds on her prior work on psychological safety and teaming to provide a framework for thinking about, discussing, and practicing the science of failing well. First published in the US and the UK in September, 2023, the book is due to be translated into 24 additional languages, and was selected for the Financial Times and Schroders Best Business Book of the Year award.

Before her academic career, she was Director of Research at Pecos River Learning Centers, where she worked on transformational change in large companies. In the early 1980s, she worked as Chief Engineer for architect/inventor Buckminster Fuller, and her book A Fuller Explanation: The Synergetic Geometry of R. Buckminster Fuller (Birkauser Boston, 1987) clarifies Fuller’s mathematical contributions for a non-technical audience. Edmondson received her PhD in organisational behavior, AM in psychology, and AB in engineering and design from Harvard University.

 

Daniel Mulino MP

Assistant Treasurer and Minister for Financial Services

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Born in Brindisi, Italy, Daniel was a young child when he moved with his family to Australia. He grew up in Canberra and completed his first degrees – arts and law – at the ANU. He then completed a Master of Economics (University of Sydney) and a PhD in economics from Yale.

He lectured at Monash University, was an economic adviser in the Gillard government and was a Victorian MP from 2014 to 2018. As Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasurer of Victoria, Daniel helped deliver major infrastructure projects and developed innovative financing structures for community projects.

In 2018 he was preselected for the new federal seat of Fraser and became its first MP at the 2019 election, re-elected in 2022 and 2025. From 2022 to 2025, Daniel was chair of the House of Representatives’ Standing Economics Committee in which he chaired inquiries; economic dynamism, competition and business formation and insurers’ responses to 2022 major floods claims.

In 2025, he became the Assistant Treasurer and Minister for Financial Services.

In August 2022, Daniel published ‘Safety Net: The Future of Welfare in Australia’, which aims to explore the ways in which an insurance approach can improve the effectiveness of government service delivery.