Data from the Class Benchmark Report indicates that across single member balances, which account for 17.1 per cent of total SMSF net assets, the average member balances for females was higher than for males, up until the age of 70 when males take the lead.
“This switch at 70 years of age could be due to females retiring earlier, or it may be that older females earned lower salaries during their working lives, or that there are other influencing factors that are not readily apparent from our data analysis,” the report said.
This contrasts against broader data on superannuation from ASFA which indicated that the average balance for all Australians aged 15 years and over for the 2015-16 financial year was $111,853 for men and $68,499 for women.
The data from Class showed that across all SMSFs, males hold higher average balances than females for all age groups.
The gap is largest between the ages of 60 and 80 when males hold up to $150,000 more than their female counterparts, according to the report.
With the arrival of the super reforms, Class said it predicts that the gap could change as members use contribution splitting strategies to rebalance their funds to remain within the $1.6 million transfer balance cap.
“Our last Benchmark Report highlighted that 29 per cent of impacted two member funds could rebalance to get under the $1.6 million cap,” said Class.
Is this a surprise? Is it a problem?