Gender-Negligent Pension Law Keeps Pension Privilege Intact

Linda Senden, Mirella Visser and Marica Wismeijer. Published in Dutch in Volkskrant on 11 January 2026.

The Netherlands is transitioning to a more future-proof pension system. But in doing so, the position of women is being ignored. On average, women receive 40 percent less pension than men. This pension gap is not addressed in the new law. On the contrary.

Research shows that we all roughly work the same number of hours. Men perform more paid work, while women perform more unpaid work. The lion’s share of childcare and informal caregiving is carried out by women. This pattern has major consequences for pensions.

Upon retirement, everyone receives the same state pension (AOW). Through paid employment, people usually accrue additional occupational pension with their employer. If you work more unpaid hours – as many women do – you build up less supplementary pension. That difference can become substantial. The average supplementary pension (on top of AOW) for a man is EUR 14,700, while for a woman it is EUR 6,400. That is a difference of EUR 700 a month.

Men Have Pension Privilege

A privilege is a structural advantage of a particular group that leads to preferential treatment compared to other groups. Because the government has taken full-time employment as the benchmark for our pension system, men accrue more supplementary pension; they have pension privilege. Our pension system does not consider part-time workers, who are mostly women.

The new pension law does not address this problem – it exacerbates it.

In the new pension system, every euro of pension contribution paid early in one’s career weighs more heavily in the eventual pension benefit. These early years are precisely the years in which women more often than men work fewer paid hours and accrue less pension than men. Under the new system, this difference is therefore expected to remain or grow.

Critics argue that women have the freedom to choose to work more hours. But that argument ignores reality. Factors such as the gender pay gap, the lack of affordable childcare, a society that increasingly relies on informal caregiving, cultural expectations, and the fact that working more hours often does not pay sufficiently lie outside women’s own sphere of influence. Women also more often work in sectors with lower wages and lower pension accrual, and they reach senior, better-paid positions less frequently.

Gender-Negligent Government Policy

In 2022, the Netherlands Institute for Human Rights already warned the government about possible indirect discrimination against part-time female employees. The government, however, considered this justified and proportionate. Reducing the pension gap was not an objective of the new law, nor were any measures prescribed to limit the consequences for this group.

When participants are transferred to the new pension system, social partners must determine whether there are groups that suffer disproportionate adverse effects and should be compensated. They are required to look at age groups, but not at part-time percentages or gender. The mandatory analyses therefore provide no insight into whether any groups – such as women – are disproportionately disadvantaged by the transfer. Women are invisible.

This is gender-negligent government policy and contrary to the legal obligation of equal treatment. It undermines the foundations of our society, which relies heavily on unpaid work such as childcare and informal caregiving. The large and persistent pension gap is clear proof that the pension system is not aligned with this social reality.

The consequences of this policy fall on the shoulders of women. As citizen, they can file a complaint with the Institute for Human Rights or take their case to court. But that is a David-versus-Goliath battle and no solution to this structural problem.

Fix the system, not the women

So far, we have applied band-aids by urging women to work more paid hours. But the government must address the systemic problem more broadly, from the perspective of collective responsibility for the entire population – not just half of it:

Take part-time work and unpaid care work as core assumptions of the pension system, alongside full-time employment.
Require pension funds to conduct a gender impact assessment, before and after the transition.
Explore option for compensation during the transition.
Broaden the tax policy so that part-time workers can save extra for retirement or repair pension accrual shortfalls.
Implement fundamental reforms in the labour market, including leave arrangements and free, accessible childcare, to create a level playing field.

Authors: Linda Senden (professor EU law University Utrecht, UN Women’s representative 2026), Mirella Visser (Centre for Inclusive Leadership), Marica Wismeijer (EmberAce, UN Women’s representative 2025)

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