This report documents pension coverage among male and female employees and examines
voluntary and involuntary reasons why women and men do not participate in pension
plans. The good news is that women are participating in pension plans in greater numbers and,
for women working full-time, near equality with men has been achieved. Part-time workers
(who are disproportionately women), however, remain much less likely to participate in employer-
sponsored pension plans. Less than a third of part-time workers participate in a pension
plan. The largest difference in participation between female and male employees occurs for
older workers (aged 45-64), with 35 percent of women saying they work too few hours to participate
in their company’s plan compared with 20 percent of men. Overall, older female employees
are less likely to expect to have a pension in retirement from any source than are older
male workers; 36 percent of male employees lack a pension from any employer compared with
44 percent of female employees.