Women's Old-Age Pensions in Portugal Average 476.86 Euros Against 822.65 for Men, a 42 Percent Gap That Has Barely Moved in a Decade

Women drawing an old-age pension from Portugal's Social Security received, on average, 42 percent less than men at the end of 2025, a gap that has barely moved in a decade. The figure comes from the report on the financial sustainability of Social Security, one of the documents accompanying the government's 2027 State Budget proposal, as Público reported on Friday.

In December 2025 the average old-age pension paid to men was 822.65 euros a month and the average paid to women was 476.86 euros, a difference of about 346 euros. The gap was 43 percent every year from 2015 to 2023 and has been 42 percent since 2024.

Newer pensions show a smaller gap

The picture improves for people retiring now. Among pensions paid for the first time in 2025, men averaged 899.72 euros and women 591.78 euros, a gap of 34 percent, down from 41 percent in 2015. Women also outnumber men among old-age pensioners: 1,045,120 pensions against 947,170.

The gap is the difference between the two averages as a share of the men's. The data cover the general Social Security scheme; the separate civil service fund, the Caixa Geral de Aposentações, is not included.

Shorter careers, lower pay, and the minimums that soften it

The report attributes the gap to differences built up over working lives in pay and in the length of contribution records. In every age group, men's average careers are longer. Among pensioners under 65 in December 2025, men had contributed for 42.7 years on average and women for 39.8; among those aged 80 and over, the figures were 30.3 and 19.5 years. The report links the gradual narrowing to more women in paid work and to their longer careers.

Before any top-up, the gap is far wider. On the statutory pension, the amount the benefit formula produces from a person's own record, women received 55 percent less than men in 2025 (64 percent in 2015). Part of that is closed by the complemento social, a top-up paid when a calculated pension falls below the legal minimum. Once it is added, the gap drops from 55 to 42 percent across all pensions and from 41 to 34 percent among new ones.

Of the women's old-age pensions in payment in December 2025, about 91 percent were below 783.75 euros a month (1.5 times the IAS, the social support index used to set benefit levels), compared with about 66 percent of men's. Only about 5 percent of women's pensions were above 1,045 euros, against 22 percent of men's.

A narrower gap on the EU measure

Eurostat, which measures the gap differently through the EU-SILC household survey of incomes, puts Portugal's gender pension gap for people aged 65 and over at 21.8 percent in 2025, down from 31.5 percent in 2015 and slightly below the EU average of 23.9 percent. The two measures are not directly comparable, but both show a slowly shrinking gap.

The main budget report also projects that the contributory pension system could run its first deficits in the early 2040s, peaking at about 0.4 percent of GDP in the first half of the 2050s, and that on its assumptions the reserve fund can cover the system's liabilities until 2070. Separately, the income floor for the poorest pensioners is due to rise to 720 euros a month in 2027; we covered the budget's wider forecasts last week.

For anyone still working in Portugal, including immigrants who arrived mid-career, the data carry a plain lesson: the pension tracks the contribution record and the pay on which contributions were made. Our retirement guide explains the system.