Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what information his Department holds on the ratio of men to women who have applied for auto-enrolment pensions.

Automatic enrolment works by requiring employers to enrol all eligible jobholders in to a workplace pension and make a contribution into it. Eligible jobholders do not need to apply to be automatically enrolled. However, those who are not eligible can ask to join their employer’s pension, known as ‘opting-in’, if they choose. Eligible employees are those who are aged 22 to State Pension age; earn £10,000 per year or more; are not already in a qualifying pension scheme and; who ordinarily work in the UK.

Automatic enrolment has been a great success with 7.3 million people enrolled at the end of January 2017. Automatic enrolment is being rolled-out gradually from October 2012 – February 2018 starting with the largest employers down to the smallest. We do not have the data that would show the ratio of men to women within the cohort of people who have already been automatically enrolled. However, there is data available that shows the increases in participation since automatic enrolment began in 2012.

In 2012, overall participation of female eligible employees was 58 per cent, compared to male participation at 52 per cent. In 2015, the participation of female eligible employees was 78 per cent with overall male participation at 73 per cent.