Pensions 2026: gender pay gap continues, women 31% less on pension cheques

There are 211,524 new pensions taking effect in the first quarter of 2026, with an average amount of EUR 1,285. However, the difference in the amount of the pension allowance between the genders, the so-called gender pay gap, remains large. Women receive 30.9 per cent less than men: on average 1,060 euro versus 1,534 euro.

These data are contained in the Inps observatory on the monitoring of retirement flows, which reflect the persistence of different pension treatment between women and men. This is the result of a series of factors that penalise female workers, starting from shorter and discontinuous working careers, due to family care duties (children, elderly), greater recourse to part-time work (often involuntary), all of which produce lower hourly wages and lower contributions paid, resulting in lower pension cheques.

But let us return to the Inps data. There are 880,139 pensions with effect from 2025 for an average monthly amount of EUR 1,221. These values refer to old age, early retirement, invalidity and survivors' pensions of the managements considered. Social allowances are also included.

In reading these figures it must be taken into account that pensions with an effective date in 2025 also include those liquidated after 2025 (up to 2 April 2026) as long as they are effective in 2025. While pensions starting in the first quarter of 2026 only include those paid by 2 April with an effective date within March. In essence, the figure for 2025 is more consolidated, although it is still susceptible to slight additions, while that for 2026 will be progressively integrated in subsequent updates.

As for the individual categories, in the first quarter there were 64,513 old age pensions, 56,004 early retirement pensions, 10,461 disability pensions, and 53,502 survivors. Among pensions starting in 2025 there were 278,640 old age pensions, 212,972 early retirement pensions, 60,276 disability pensions and 230,046 survivors' pensions.