By Abigail Wood, Chief Executive of Gingerbread

This Pensions Awareness Week, we’re shining a light on an issue that can be easy to overlook, the financial future of single parents.

At Gingerbread, we support single parents every day and see the immense effort it takes to balance work and family life alone. Yet as well as posing challenges to their lives right now, many of the issues single parents face also make it harder for them to build financial security for retirement.

Research from the Money and Pensions Service (MaPS) highlights the scale of the issue. Its MoneyView 2026 survey found that around 55% of single parents have no plan for their finances in retirement, compared with around 35% of coupled parents. It also found that more than half of single parents don’t feel they understand pensions enough to make decisions about retirement.

Single-parent families are twice as likely to be living in poverty as couple families. When every pound is needed for food, bills and childcare, planning decades ahead can understandably fall down the priority list.

Most single parents are in work, but balancing employment with raising children alone can mean reducing hours, turning down opportunities without enough flexibility, or stepping away from work altogether when childcare becomes unaffordable. These decisions are often necessary to keep family life going, but they can have long-term consequences for pension saving. What helps a family cope today can mean less financial security in retirement.

Divorce and separation can widen the gap further. Pensions can be one of the largest assets someone owns, yet research from MaPS’ Divorce Survey 2026 found that only 4 in 10 UK adults know that a pension can form part of a divorce settlement. Too often, women in particular miss out on pension wealth that could make a significant difference to their future financial security.

The good news is that there are practical steps that can help, from understanding your State Pension entitlement and tracing old pension pots to, where affordable, staying enrolled in a workplace pension and benefiting from employer contributions. For a single parent struggling to make ends meet, stopping pension contributions can feel like an easy way to free up some extra money. But if contributions can continue, even at a modest level, the long-term benefits can be significant.

But retirement inequality cannot be solved by simply telling single parents to save more. We need a pensions system that reflects the realities of modern family life and does not penalise people for taking on caring responsibilities. Employers, policymakers and the pensions industry all have a role to play in creating that system. Single parents contribute enormously to society and the economy. They should not face a future where years spent caring for children lead to financial insecurity in retirement.

Pensions Awareness Week is an opportunity to start these conversations and encourage more people to think about their financial future. But it’s also a reminder that everyone needs a fair opportunity to prepare for retirement.

If you need help understanding your pension or planning for retirement, MaPS’s MoneyHelper service offers free, impartial guidance to help you understand your options and take the next steps: https://www.moneyhelper.org.uk/en/pensions-and-retirement