Podcast: Superannuation is leaving women behind

When it comes to equity in superannuation, we've got a lot of work to do.

Women on average retire with 42% less in super than men, and as we learn on this episode of Pocket Money, there's no easy fix. It's a deep-rooted issue in Australian society that will take some big ideas to solve.

Today on the podcast, we're joined by Kirstin Hunter, the managing director at Future Super. Kirstin and her colleagues are leading the charge to bring this conversation about gender inequality in our superannuation system into the limelight. Sally, Kate and Kirstin uncover the scope of the issue, where it stems from, and some practical tips that both women and men can follow to help remedy it one piece at a time.

Mentioned in this episode

• Future Super's Gender Equality report
• Equality is Everyone's Business
• Australia's super system needs a female lens
• Finder's complete guide to super and retirement
• The Facts About Women and Super
• Big fight looms over increasing superannuation guarantee payments

Read the transcript of this episode

• Episode 203 transcript

  Note: This is based on a machine-generated transcript. We've tidied it up, but we're sorry if any glitches have slipped through.

  Kirstin Hunter:
  I think that's a really important thing that we often overlook when we talk to women about superannuation, is the power that women have to actually influence a structure within their business.

  Sally McMullen:
  Welcome to Pocket Money, everyone. The show where sisters are trying to do it for themselves, but society keeps dragging them down. Hey, Kate!

  Kate Browne:
  Hello, happy imminent International Women's Day.

  Sally McMullen:
  It's the most wonderful time of the year.

  Kate Browne:
  Speaking of singing and thinking about International Women's Day, I have been singing the superannuation blues.

  Sally McMullen:
  Tell me more.

  Kate Browne:
  Dun nah nah nah nah, opened up my statement, dun nah nah nah nah, I'm going to stop singing. But, in keeping with this theme and money and all that stuff, something came over me and I opened my super statement the other day – I like to ignore them cause I'm very grown up like that – and I had a look at my partner's because I'm a bit like that as well – he was there. Anyway, I worked out I have exactly half the super that he has and we're the same age. So my sad and sorry tale, in a nutshell, for all you listeners out there, is I should have more super than my partner, and 12 years ago we decided to have a baby. We had our lovely little baby and I stayed home from work for a year to look after her. Didn't earn any super because I wasn't earning any money. He was. And it was time to go back to work, went back to work three days a week, cause, you know, childcare is like about a million dollars a day, and was earning a little bit less, so earning a little bit less super. In the meantime, my partner had had a promotion, he's still working full time. We crazily decided to have another baby. And so I had another year off with her and continued working part time. Eventually, I worked back up to full time, but here we are now, that first baby is 12 years old and I now have half the super that my partner has.

  Sally McMullen:
  So that just seems crazy to me, but it's not an uncommon story, right? Women in Australia are retiring with about half as much superannuation as men. And that's what we're going to be talking about today. The gender gap with superannuation, and how it is a bigger problem than probably all of us realise, but also some of the practical steps that you can take.

  Kate Browne:
  We know that, like, no one finds super sexy or interesting, but it is a necessary evil. And we know that most Australians don't have enough super – none of us – because we don't tend to look after it, mostly it's in a state of benign neglect. But I think the figures about what happens to women falling behind are so shocking, and we're going to look at some of the reasons today with Kirsten Hunter. She's the managing director of Future Super. She's done a whole lot of work in this area, plus Future Super have done some studies into the kind of structural inequalities there are in super, what can be done about it, including what we can do right now while we're all sitting around singing the superannuation blues, and also about how to kind of engage with your super, which often is shorthand for, like, it's very, very dull. But yeah, talking about, like, all that money that we do and we don't have is being invested somewhere and what we can do to kind of feel a little bit more empowered. I have to say, this is an episode looking at women's gender gap when it comes to super – this affects everybody, because when women do badly, everybody does badly as a society. It affects families and it also affects people's ability to contribute to society and pay taxes and all that good stuff. So if you are not a woman, and you're listening and you think maybe this isn't for me, it absolutely is. So stay tuned as we talk to Kirstin Hunter.

  Sally McMullen:
  Welcome to Pocket Money. Thanks so much for joining us today.

  Kirstin Hunter:
  Thanks for having me.

  Sally McMullen:
  And just to kick off, can you tell us a little bit about yourself and what you do at Future Super?

  Kirstin Hunter:
  Absolutely. So I am the managing director here at Future Super. And I look after the part of the business that has to do with members. So I work with our marketing team, our technology team, our member advocacy team, and our new product innovation to connect Australians with the power of their money and help them use their superannuation to create the future that we all want to retire into.

  Kate Browne:
  Fantastic. So one of the reasons we're talking to you today is International Women's Day is any day soon. Eighth of March, it's a Sunday this year. We really wanted to talk about a huge issue for women when it comes to super, which is the gender super gap. So, as opposed to, listeners, to the gender pay gap, this is about what super looks like for women. Just in a few words, can you sum up what it looks like right now for a lot of modern Australian women?

  Kirstin Hunter:
  Absolutely. For many women in Australia, superannuation is a really, really tragic time in their lives and it shouldn't be that way. But the way the system has been set up, currently, means that for the average Australian woman, she's retiring with around 47% less super than the average Australian man. That is linked to the gender pay gap, but it's kind of the long term effect of a gender pay gap over a woman's lifetime combined with other societal factors like women being more likely to take time out of the workforce to look after children or ageing parents. When they do return to work, they're more likely to work part time. And then the fact that women make up a lower proportion of the senior leadership roles and companies so they're more likely to be in lower-paid roles. Over the course of woman's lifetime, that really, really adds up and results in women in Australia retiring with so much less super than men.

  Kate Browne:
  So really, in a nutshell, for someone that doesn't really understand how super is structured, super is designed, really, to favour people that work in paid work, full time. Would you say that's fair?

  Kirstin Hunter
  That's right. So the superannuation system, because Australians contribute 9.5% of their salary into their superannuation each year, that means that if you're working full time, if you're in a higher-paid position, you're going to accumulate more super. And particularly, with the effect of compound interest, having time out of the workforce in your, sort of, earlier working years, really adds up over time as well to a big reduction in the super that you retire with.

  Kate Browne:
  And we know that it's women that take the lion's share of caring still, unfortunately, in Australia for various reasons, if it's to take time out for parenting or caring duties with aged family members or partners. Would you just call it structural inequality?

  Kirstin Hunter:
  100% it's structural inequality, absolutely. The system really was designed with the very traditional nuclear family in mind. So you'd have one partner who works full time their entire life, the other partner who might come in and out of the workforce, but the family's retirement income is the combination of both contributions. But in our world that we live in today, where there's increasingly separation, there's increasingly people living in non-traditional domestic arrangements, living by themselves, then that system starts to break down. And so when you have a structural inequality that relates to working in the way that women tend to be disadvantaged in Australia, because of those things that you mentioned like taking time out for caring, working part time, that really does impact on the equality within the superannuation system.

  Sally McMullen:
  Yeah, so, there have been quite a few headlines coming out in recent years that women are making up the fastest-growing group of homeless people in Australia, especially women of an older age – I think it was like one in three of older women live below the poverty line right now. So is that tied into this superannuation problem?

  Kirstin Hunter:
  It can be tied in, yeah, and it's an absolutely devastating statistic when you think about, you know, these women are getting to retirement age, not having a lot of money in superannuation, probably because they've spent the bulk of their, sort of, younger working-age lives caring for other people, either children or other, sort of, relatives in the family, and then getting to the age where they need some help and there's nobody there to help them. They don't have the accumulated superannuation balance to look after themselves and then the systems that we have to support them are really inadequate. So, yeah, absolutely. Increasingly, what we're hearing is that, sort of, older demographic of women, are the fastest-growing in homelessness and fastest-growing poverty segments in Australia.

  Sally McMullen:
  Yeah, it's a really scary stat. And I saw that there was some ABS data that said that the number of homeless women had doubled from 2006 to 2016. Like, that is wild for just a decade of time. Do you think that is because, like you said, superannuation is designed to benefit, like, the traditional family model, whereas now, you know, we have a higher number of, like, single parents and separations and women, you know, taking care of families on their own?

  Kirstin Hunter:
  I'm sure there are many factors that combined to produce these results. But definitely the way the superannuation system, the compulsory saving for retirement, is set up does not do women any favours in Australia, particularly older women, particularly older women who have separated from their partners or suffered some other loss where they can no longer rely on the superannuation balance built up by a partner who's been working full time for their entire career.

  Kate Browne:
  What's the history of super? When did it come into play? I can't remember off the top of my head how long it's been. Is it 30 years?

  Kirstin Hunter:
  It's about that, sort of late 80s, early 90s, Paul Keating kind of era. And it really was, Australia was one of the leaders in the world when it comes to having a system of superannuation to support people in their retirement. And really, in many ways, we do have a lot to be very, very grateful for. In particular, from our perspective, being a provider of superannuation for people who want to make sure their money is invested in line with their values, the fact that in Australia, we do get to choose who our superannuation provider is, makes us really unusual compared to the rest of the world.

  Kate Browne:
  And that ties in, obviously, with what's happening at Future Super where you can actually have a choice about who you're gonna invest your money with, and also what they're going to invest their money in.

  Kirstin Hunter:
  Yeah, exactly. So a lot of other, even other countries where they do have a similar kind of contribution scheme, it'll be locked into a single provider, or into a government-provided retirement benefits scheme. You don't have that flexibility and control, like we have in Australia, to say, I want my money invested, you know, either in this way or with this fund or in this sort of growth versus conservative investment option. So there is a lot of power for Australians in their superannuation, if they're, sort of, able to take control of that.

  Kate Browne:
  So we've talked about how super came about. What, if any, reform have we seen in the structure of super since it was, kind of, set up for that classic nuclear family? Is there any reform that you can say that will help women on the horizon?

  Kirstin Hunter:
  There's been some tweaking around the edges with superannuation, but nothing major. So one of the major things, one of the biggest reforms that has been spoken about is getting a lot of airplay at the moment is increasing the percentage of compulsory contribution. So it's currently sitting at 9.5%, the goal is to move it up to 12-12.5% over the next several years. So very, very slow, staggered increase. And even that has been very controversial in Australia, with a lot of people saying that increasing the superannuation contribution isn't going to fix the gender superannuation gap at retirement. Which is true. It won't fix the gap between men and women at retirement, but what it will do, hopefully, is mean that women are retiring with more in their superannuation. So the gap is due to many factors, but we shouldn't avoid fixing the problem that women are retiring with not enough super, because it's not going to bring men and women more into line.

  Kate Browne:
  So those who are collecting more super will just collect more super?

  Kirstin Hunter:
  Exactly. They'll collect even more super.

  Kate Browne:
  It's not quite the solution that we wanna look at.

  Kirstin Hunter:
  No, it doesn't fix the gap, but hopefully it does do something to address the number of older women who are entering into poverty or homelessness.

  Sally McMullen:
  So we like to break up every episode with a little game of "Overrated or Underrated". So Kate and I have three topics that we'll throw your way, and it's a bit of a rapid-fire round. So if you can tell us if you think they're overrated or underrated. So do you want to kick us off, Kate?

  Kate Browne:
  Hashtag activism. So getting online as opposed to maybe getting out in the streets or, you know, taking a real stand?

  Kirstin Hunter:
  Underrated.

  Sally McMullen:
  Tell us why?

  Kirstin Hunter:
  Well, I think that there's a lot of power in activism, regardless of the channel that you do it through. I think getting out on the streets, having your person counted and your voice heard is really important, but so is putting a lot of pressure through social media, through comments sections. I don't think it has to be either/or, I'd like it to be both. But I do think there's a lot of stigma around hashtag activism, which sort of undermines the fact that it can actually be quite powerful. Hashtag activism, I think, can be really, really powerful when it mobilises people to then bring their activism offline. And I think some of the really excellent work that you've seen through the group Mad Fucking Witches – sorry for the swearing – to do with taking advertisers off Alan Jones's radio show, you know, incredible online activism that then is transferred offline through letter-writing campaigns and phone calls, that is resulting in a big shift for corporate Australia, saying that they don't want to be associated with Alan Jones and his messaging.

  Kate Browne:
  It also helps people find their crowd, doesn't it, very quickly, and whose values align with their own and they can organise quite easily with, sort of, minimum effort. And I guess it's very inclusive. It means that if you can't get out on the streets or you don't live in a big city, you can still be involved and you can still have your say.

  Kirstin Hunter:
  Yeah, and there's real power in that. One of my favourite groups that I'm a part of is "Australian Parents for Climate Action". And I love it because it's got this concept of being a parent and thinking about your child's future, but also, as parents, we're often, you know, we're safe territory for politicians, they use us as an excuse not to act, we don't want to shake up the economy and risk, you know, hard-working Australians suffering. And so I just love the idea that a group of parents from all over Australia can come together and then use their parentness as a way of influencing social change.

  Sally McMullen:
  So, very on theme for today's episode: International Women's Day. Overrated or underrated?

  Kirstin Hunter:
  Oh, I could go either way on this. I'm going to say underrated, because I do think that women's issues and equality in Australia generally is underrated. And International Women's Day does give us a good opportunity to discuss it. My hesitation was, we shouldn't have to wait for one day a year to address inequality. But I'll take one day a year over zero days a year.

  Kate Browne:
  Last one, slightly off theme but we were just chatting about it in the office: cash or cards? Underrated or overrated?

  Kirstin Hunter:
  As in, having the choice?

  Kate Browne:
  Yeah, using cash or using cards?

  Kirstin Hunter:
  Using cash is totally overrated. That is a personal opinion, it is not financial advice. I mean, I never carry cash and I'm always shocked when I go somewhere that requires cash only and it's just, it feels like a major afront to me.

  Kate Browne:
  It's funny how our habits have changed. I just noticed within a year, my habits have changed from carrying some cash to no cash. And I can confidently say, the only time I got caught out is when I had to leave some money on behalf of the tooth fairy!

  Kirstin Hunter:
  I was about to say that, yeah.

  Kate Browne:
  In a year, that is the only time – scrabbling around down the back of the couch. But yeah, I think, I don't know. What do you think, Sally?

  Sally McMullen:
  Oh my god, 2020 parent problems. I never would have thought of that. I would say, yeah, 100%, I'm card all the way. Sorry.

  Kate Browne:
  Interesting those shifts. Happens fast.

  Sally McMullen:
  Just so much more convenient. But yeah, never. And often I'll find I'll have, like, cash in my wallet and then I just never use it. I forget it's there, which is kind of a nice surprise.

  Kate Browne:
  Coming back to super. So we've talked about the kind of structural inequality and not a lot happening there. What would your advice be to women about the steps they can take right now to maximise what is a bit of a crap deal?

  Kirstin Hunter:
  Well, there are a lot of things that women can do individually to increase the likelihood that they as individuals will retire with enough superannuation. A couple of things, you can make personal contributions into your super, which mean that you can access tax advantages, chat to your finance department at work to figure out how to do that most effectively. There's also an option that the ATO provides where you can do contribution splitting with your spouse. So if you are in a position where your spouse earns more than you, you can actually once a year even out the contribution to your super. This is particularly important for women who might be taking time out as part of a family decision to either raise children or care for parents and their partner might be working while they're out of the workforce, you can actually equal out the contribution to your super over the course of the year so that you don't end up missing out.

  Kate Browne:
  And what's the advantage in that? Is that an advantage if you, say, split up?

  Kirstin Hunter:
  Yeah, exactly. It's an advantage if you split up or if something happens, you know. And more and more, relationships aren't going the distance, and I don't want to, sort of, you know, be the bad news person, but, yeah. And I think it is a strong statement by a couple as well to say that the decision for one partner to be out of the workforce while the other works is a family decision. And that shouldn't result in the member of the couple who has taken time out paying a penalty in retirement. And so I do think that it's a strong statement about equality within a relationship, even above and beyond whether or not the relationship will succeed. Although I would say to, you know, anyone listening that having equality in a relationship probably does make it more likely that your relationship will succeed. So sharing your super with your spouse maybe makes it more likely that you'll have a spouse at retirement.

  Kate Browne:
  That's right, it's a bit like sharing all those other chores. And I think, you know, certainly, as someone who's taken time out of the workforce to have children and feeling, not bitter towards my partner, but just kind of bitter towards the system that I was falling behind. I think steps like that, which was something we didn't do, we just didn't think about it, really, at the time. And I guess that speaks more broadly to the nature of super, you don't think about it.

  Kirstin Hunter:
  And that was going to be my next point as well. Those things that I mentioned around making personal contributions, splitting your contributions with your spouse, making personal contributions assumes that you have enough disposable income to be able to part with some of it and put it away for retirement. But there are some other things as well that you can do, which are kind of more systemic changes. So more and more employers are starting to adopt a policy now where they'll pay superannuation for parents of any gender who are taking time out to care for children. So if you're on parental leave, you get a certain number of weeks of parental leave payments, but often that doesn't include superannuation, and then often you'll have a period of time where you're unpaid, where you won't be being paid superannuation at all. So Future Super actually brought this policy in for our staff a number of years ago, where we'll pay their superannuation for the first 12 months of parental leave for any gender parent taking time out with a new child. And so that means that from a superannuation perspective, you're not being punished by taking that time out. We also brought about a policy, as well, where if we have staff return to work, and they're working part time, caring part time, we'll pay their super as though they're working full time.

  Kate Browne:
  Wow, that's amazing.

  Kirstin Hunter:
  Yeah, it's a really powerful way for us as a business to say we support that equality. And it doesn't just help women. It actually encourages men to take time out and care as well, because then they're not paying the financial penalty. So I think that's a really important thing that we often overlook when we talk to women about superannuation, is the power that women have to actually influence a structure within their business and then, more broadly, sort of, you know, letter writing, hashtag activism on government policy, all of those things can start to shake up the system as well.

  Kate Browne:
  Yeah, I think you've made a good point that there are lots of ways to, kind of, even though the system is essentially set up is very inequitable, there are different ways you can play it so it is more equitable.

  Sally McMullen:
  Yeah, and I think that's so important because I'm, like, I'm only a couple of years into my career now, and I don't think there's really been any point up until I've seen some of these headlines, and then, of course, being involved in the podcast and doing this research on my own, that I've really been educated about any of this. And I think a lot of people would be in a similar situation where it's not until you're getting up to that point, that you are retiring or maybe you've decided to have children or there's another reason why you're out of work. And then you come back and you look at your super and it's kind of like, it's too late. So I think it's really great to, I guess, know some of these tips now and like be on the front foot, and that women of all ages in Australia should be aware of this and be aware of these inequalities and what they can do to, I guess, empower themselves and protect themselves.

  Kirstin Hunter:
  I also think, I mean, my experience in coming to the workforce was, in the early years of my career, there wasn't a huge difference that was visible, anyway, between me and my male colleagues. It was only really once I got more senior, once I got closer to the really big promotions, once I left the workforce, had my baby, came back part time, that those structural things that had previously been invisible start to really bite. And so I think, for younger women, being aware that these issues do exist, they might not be impacting on you yet, but at an average level in Australia, they do exist. And getting informed about them early enough so that you can start making changes to protect yourself when you're older can be a really powerful way of just making sure that you're not one of the statistics as well.

  Kate Browne:
  Question for you: How do you make super sexy to people that just don't want to think about it?

  Kirstin Hunter:
  Really great question. I mean, I get really pumped up talking about superannuation and one of the things that I absolutely love about it is just thinking about it from the big picture. In Australia, we have almost $3 trillion sitting in superannuation that is an asset that belongs to every individual who has paid into it. That is a huge amount of money that we have that we can control if we are willing to take hold of it. And we live in a capitalist society, for better or worse, and money talks. And so you've got this asset that's sitting there, that's being held by someone else, waiting for you when you retire. But what that person does with your superannuation now, while you can't touch it, can change the world that's going to exist when we retire. So your super could be funding the expansion of fossil fuel plants, of coal mines, or it could be funding the development of new renewable energy projects. And so being able to make that decision about what world you want to invest in, I think is a super, super exciting thing.

  Kate Browne:
  Do you think that with what you've been doing, particularly, at Future Super, that does give an extra resonance to the power of, you know, investing money, and that it is your money?

  Kirstin Hunter:
  Yeah, definitely. And what we find as well is that, you know, as you say, that inability that we have to be able to think about ourselves as old and in a need of support and just plan for the future in that way, the thing that we do at Future Super is we really connect people with the power of their superannuation today. Where your super is sitting in 2020 can have an impact on the world that we live in today. And that is a really powerful thing. The fact that we think super is so unsexy is actually a deliberate thing that the industry has set up. They want us to think that superannuation is hard, it's complicated, we can't understand it, you know, it's too much for us to think about it, we'll just trust them over there to look after our money and we won't get involved. And that's the reason why Australians have so many superannuation accounts that are paying so many billions of dollars a year in lost fees that are going to these super funds that are just sitting there with your account and not engaging with you and what you're doing. So I really think that there's something about the transparency in the industry that has been quite deliberate to try and disengage Australians. What we're doing as Future Super, we're not a My Super product, so we don't have people defaulting in through employers. Every member who joins Future Super has made an active decision to do so, and we try and really make that feel like a powerful decision for them. We want people to feel like they're taking control of their money and they're sending a message, not only to the existing super funds that they want them to do better, but to the companies that are being invested in by super funds, to say, we don't want to be invested in companies that are promoting a world that is unequal by having an all-male board, we don't want to invest in companies that are propping up fossil fuels, we don't want to invest in old-growth logging and animal cruelty. We want to invest in the type of world that we all want to live in and we can do that with our super.

  Sally McMullen:
  So we've spoken a lot about super in Australia, of course, but are there any other countries where you're seeing like a similar sort of situation, but they're doing it right? Like, is there any sort of potential that Australia could fix this issue that isn't just increasing the minimum amount that we put into our super?

  Kirstin Hunter:
  Look, I think every country is struggling a little bit at the moment to think about how to look after its people in retirement. I think there are many examples that are better than us, absolutely, but there are also many things that we can do to fix the inequalities that we have within our system. There's actually quite a big campaign by Women in Super around make super fair, which has got some great recommendations that can be targeted to fix the superannuation gap. There's things that we can do as individuals. There's things that the private sector can step in and do as well to actually reduce the inequality that women will have at retirement. And that's probably actually a good point to talk about Future Supers' Equality is Everyone's Business report, which took the data that the Workplace Gender Equality Agency receives through its reporting. And we looked at what happens within the ASX100 for all of those companies and how they actually treat the data that they were reporting about gender equality. And we looked at six different factors across the report. So transparency, leadership, buy-in, data analysis around gender imbalances, access to equal work and pay, flexible working conditions, as well as equal access to career progression. And we looked at those areas across all of the ASX100, and what we found is no company in Australia is doing it perfectly well today. So every single company in Australia has an opportunity to improve what they're doing within their business to create a more equal world for women working for them today, which in turn will impact the equality that those women experience when they retire. Transparency, I think, is really important. There's a lot of conversation about this issue, gender equality, gender pay gap. You know, every year, it feels like we have the same kind of conversation where we say, what can we do to fix this, there's a host of solutions that get thrown up, and then the next year we come back and the data has moved a fraction of a percentage point and nothing has really changed. So what we're really pushing companies to do is to make their gender pay gap transparent, publish the data, tell your staff how you're performing, and then make it available for other people as well, because we found that to be a really, really powerful driver here at Future Super. Saying nice words is one thing, but being willing to actually put the numbers behind the nice words and front up to your team if you're not doing a good enough job, if you're not delivering on your promise, that's how we're going to see real change. And I think that's something that all workers in Australia, male, female, can do to actually put pressure on their employers to be transparent with their data. When your boss or your company makes a statement about gender equality, ask to see the numbers, ask to see the numbers on an annual basis. And by doing that, I think, hopefully, we will create an environment where the talk is not enough, that we need to actually see results. And like anything to do with business, if it's not measured, then it's not going to be managed.

  Sally McMullen:
  So we've talked about a lot of actionables that we can all take after listening to this episode. But where can our listeners go to learn more?

  Kirstin Hunter:
  I think a good starting place is our report Equality is Everyone's Business (equalityiseveryonesbusiness.com.au) that shows how all of the companies in the ASX100 have performed across those six dimensions that I mentioned. So if you're an employee in one of those companies, it can tell you how your employer sitting. It also has a number of recommendations for companies on areas that they can focus in to make a more equal workforce, as well as a list of every single company in the ASX100 who we personally contacted and asked them if they could make a commitment to do one thing better, as well as the response that that company gave. So it's a really powerful tool for workers, for employers to actually look at how they can improve the companies that they're operating in and make them more equal to women.

  Sally McMullen:
  Awesome. Well, thank you so much. We'll make sure to pop that in our show notes at finder.com.au/podcast. But thank you so much, Kirstin, we learned so much and I'm excited to go have some of those conversations right after this.

  Sally McMullen:
  Thanks for listening, pals. That's another episode of Pocket Money wrapped up. And for all of the resources and links to some of the reports that we mentioned in today's episode, make sure to head to finder.com.au/podcast for all of the juicy details. As always, hit us up on Instagram @pocketmoneypodcast and join our Facebook group.

  Kate Browne:
  And as they always say, subscribe, follow and share. We'll love you if you do. Pocket Money is Kate Browne – that's me – Sally McMullen, producer Franko, and editing from the very talented and wonderful Brianna Ansaldo of Bamby media. Thanks for listening.

  Sally McMullen:
  Happy International Women's Day!

  Sally McMullen:
  Thanks for listening to Pocket Money from Finder. Head over to finder.com.au/podcast for the show notes for this episode. The Finder Podcast is intended to provide you with tips, tools and strategies that will help you make better decisions. Although we're licenced and authorised, we don't provide financial advice, so please consider your own situation or get advice before making any decisions based on anything in our show. Thanks for listening.

The Finder Pocket Money podcast is intended to provide you with tips, tools and strategies that will help you make better decisions. Although we're licensed and authorised, we (and our guests) aren't providing any form of financial or legal advice. So please consider your own situation and get proper advice about your individual circumstances before making any decisions based on anything on our show. Thanks for listening.

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Pocket Money is hosted by Sally McMullen and Kate Browne, produced and directed by Franko Ali, with editing and theme music from Brianna Ansaldo of Bamby Media.

finder.com.au (ACL 385509. CAR 432664) is Australia's most popular comparison site. We like to help, and while we understand that our podcast provides information, insight and entertainment, it's not personal advice. Consider your own circumstances and get advice before you make any decision based on our general comments and commentary.