Non-concessional contributions by women helping to close the gender super gap
Women are starting to make a higher proportion of non-concessional contributions to self-managed funds, according to the latest industry highlights from SMSF software company Class.
In its most recent analysis of the industry, it found the gender gap is slowly narrowing, with SMSF fund assets held by women up 1 per cent this year, from 43 per cent to 44 per cent.
This is in keeping with data released by the Australian Taxation Office, which found that more women between the ages of 35 and 69 were actually members of a self-managed fund in June 2022, with the highest percentage recorded in the 60- to 64-year age bracket.
According to statistics from the Class analysis, the SMSF sector reached an all-time high of 603,449 registered with the ATO as of September 2022.
And it found that Millennials continue to lead on SMSF establishment, with new funds started by those between the ages of 25 and 44 years accounting for 38 per cent of all newly established funds compared to Baby Boomers (25 per cent) and Gen X (35 per cent).
According to the ATO figures, women with a taxable income between $0 to $20,000 accounted for the majority of newly established SMSF (25.6 per cent), closely followed by women in the $20,000 to $40,000 income bracket (18.5 per cent).
In regard to investing, Class data shows that SMSFs continue to invest in exchange-traded funds (ETFs); however, asset values suffered small declines of around -0.3 per cent as of 31 December 2022.
Older Australians also continued to take advantage of the removal of work tests with increases to both concessional and non-concessional contributions.
Concessional contributions in the age range of 66 to 70 years were up by 5 per cent, while non-concessional contributions in the same age range were up by 7 per cent. Non-concessional contributions for those aged 70 years and over had also doubled.
