In response to demographic changes and their economic consequences, many European countries had either already reformed or planned to reform their pension systems. In the current debate, it has become plain that no pension solution will be socially sustainable without guaranteeing fair retirement incomes for women. Our analyses in this policy brief present the current poverty situation of older women in EU countries, and also discuss how recent changes in the pension policy of some of the European countries may be less or more detrimental to women than men. We discuss various pension policy changes that will be beneficial for women, and identify that the most suitable and effective policy action to tackle poverty risks amongst older women is through labour market policies, in the form of targetted active labour market policies for women.
