A super reward for women's financial security (Ep #51)

with Pascale Helyar-Moray

If you, like most women in Australia, have had a period of time when nothing or very little has been paid to your superannuation account, listen up!

This episode of the podcast will introduce you to Pascale Helyar-Moray, the CEO of a new online shopping platform that has the potential to change women’s financial security and shake up the superannuation system in Australia.

Women remain incredibly financially vulnerable in Australia, despite a superannuation system that has $2.9 trillion invested. It is a system that works well, provided you are in fulltime employment for the 40 years or so of your adult working life.

For most women, that’s not the case. Time out of the workforce to raise children, high levels of part-time employment, or choosing to be in a small business comes at a huge cost to their superannuation balances, with most recent statistics showing men retire with 42 percent more superannuation than women.

Women over 55 are the fastest growing group of homeless Australians, and more women than men who are over 60 live in poverty.

We are routinely told that we (women) need to boost our superannuation – which by the way, you need around $500,000 in super and to own your own home if you want to live a modest retirement – and yet no-one tells us how we’re meant to do that when we have kids to look after, can only work part-time, had to take a demotion or pay cut when we returned to work, or have no capacity to work more than we already do.

Superannuation is a system designed by men, for men because men are the folks who mostly work fulltime their entire adult lives.

Nobody in authority has as yet shown a willingness to perhaps consider it’s the system that needs changing so it doesn’t continue to penalise women.

So when I saw the launch of Super Rewards, I was very excited because it gives women an opportunity to make contributions to their super without having to do anything other than shop.

It’s a platform in which retailers pay a percentage of what you spend with them, back to your superannuation fund.

I was so grateful that Pascale took the time to chat and explain both how Super Rewards came about, but also why it’s needed. This is such an important topic to discuss but also, to take action on.