This is what you get

I suspect quite a few people are getting fed up with special pleading from financial services firms to address societal issues by buying their products. I am one!

I was pleased to see that super-sleuth actuaries Stuart McDonald and Adele Groyer (known to us as leading lights of Covid-arg.com) caught Hargreaves Lansdown with their statistical pants down.

“The gender pension gap starts at birth” claims @HLInvest, on the basis that 15,300 boys had money paid into a pension compared to 14,500 girls. So 51.3% of kids pension pots are for boys.

What percentage of births are male on average? 51.3%. 😂 https://t.co/5WT4KuYCUx

— stuart mcdonald (@ActuaryByDay) June 22, 2022

There is a gender pay gap, but it’s not created by loaded parents pre-funding their little darlings SIPP accounts (and taking advantage of one of a source of tax-relief that frankly is an abuse of privilege).

Infact the lucky infant SIPP holders  are more male than female in precisely the proportion that they came out of the womb (51.3% v 48.7%). Why more males get born than females is not a societal but a genetic question.

Illustration of the male/female split by age.

So HL’s headline ought to be “boys and girls are equally likely to have a pension pot”. pic.twitter.com/psrOAbN8Vm

— stuart mcdonald (@ActuaryByDay) June 22, 2022

The pensions gender gap is a serious issue and arises out of very real societal injustice (women do not get the same opportunities and pay as men). It leaves many women in real poverty in later age, especially where they are bereaved, divorced or deserted.

Sadly, the more important gap at birth is the gap between rich and poor parents.

I realise this question was rhetorical but we can try to tackle it with data.

Can’t do “can afford to pay” but we can look at how what %age choose to pay.

12.7m UK children aged 15 or under.

29,800 have a pension.

So that is 0.23% or 1-in-430.

Same %age for boys and girls. https://t.co/Sb229LQw0h

— stuart mcdonald (@ActuaryByDay) June 23, 2022

Hargreaves should not indulge in hand-wringing of this kind. Not only is the hook line for its SIPP marketing campaign trivialising the issue,  it’s fake news. The campaign brings both the issue and Hargreaves into disrepute.

Thankfully , the Karma Police , in the form of Stuart and Adele, are a lot smarter than the people who dreamt up this particular campaign.

Thom Yorke:

Karma is important. The idea that something like karma exists makes me happy. It makes me smile. Karma Police is dedicated to everyone who works for a big firm. It’s a song against bosses.

Ed O’Brien:

When someone in the band behaved like an a–hole, one of the others always said: ‘The Karma Police is gonna get you.’

Here’s the 2003 Glastonbury version – as it’s that time of year