AUSTRALIA | A joint effort by industry bodies has called for carers to be entitled to superannuation, according to a new Super Members Council report.
Australia’s frontline carers are being made poorer in retirement because they miss out on superannuation when caring intensively for loved ones, often for years, a new report from the Super Members Council shows.
The report, Unfinished business: Fixing gaps in the Super Guarantee, finds more than one million Australians still miss out on super simply because of who they are or the work they do.
This includes part-time workers under the age of 18 and domestic workers employed in private homes (cleaners, nannies and housekeepers) who work less than 30 hours a week, and Australians who step out of paid work to care for loved ones. Women are disproportionately harmed by these exclusions.
“Australia’s super system is meant to be universal, but today more than a million Australians are still missing out on the same guarantee as 17 million of their fellow Australians, simply because of their age, the work they do or who they are. That’s just not fair,” said the Council’s CEO Misha Schubert.
“Paying super on the Carer Payment would be a big step forward for fairness that recognises the economic value of care and would make a real difference, especially for women, who carry the bulk of caring responsibilities. It’s a foundation stone to begin to tackle the carer poverty penalty.”
Currently, Australians who step out of the paid workforce to deliver constant intensive care to a loved one, care that would otherwise cost taxpayers vastly more to deliver with Government services, are being made poorer in retirement due to the loss of super they would otherwise earn. More than 70 percent are women.
Paying the 12 percent Super Guarantee on the Carer Payment would deliver an average AUD 3,072 a year in super to 334,000 unpaid carers in the years they are delivering vital caregiving.
For a typical 45-year-old carer, this could boost their super by AUD 45,000 more by retirement, due to compound returns, and mean less pressure on the Age Pension for taxpayers.
The highly means-tested Carer Payment is a modest payment that partially replaces someone’s income when they step away from paid work for at least six months to care constantly for a person with disability or medical condition, or a frail elderly person with intense care needs.
Like paid parental leave prior to 2025, this payment does not yet include super. Women are three times more likely to have to take on informal caregiving demands than men. More than one-in seven women face primary caregiving demands between the ages 45 and 65, reducing their earnings by up to AUD 40,000 a year.
The Council urges all policymakers to commit to paying superannuation on the Carer Payment, arguing it is a practical and fair step forward to recognise the economic value of unpaid care.
While carers deliver essential support that would otherwise fall to the health and aged care systems, they are not treated the same as other forms of essential work when it comes to superannuation.
The report also highlights gaps for gig economy workers, warning many Australians in app-based and contractor roles continue to miss out on super because they fall outside traditional employment definitions.
Creating a pathway for super in gig work would mean around 184,000 gig workers would receive an average of AUD 2,220 a year in super, supporting a typical young gig worker to retire with around AUD 38,000 more in super. The Council continues to push hard to end the unfair super exclusion of part-time under-18 workers, an issue it has campaigned on heavily over the past year, and for domestic workers doing less than 30 hours a week for one employer in private homes as cleaners, housekeepers and nannies.
The denial of superannuation for under-18s if they work less than 30 hours a week for their employer costs 515,000 teen workers nationally AUD 405 million this financial year. The research also shows around 37,000 domestic workers missed out on superannuation in 2026-27, and the overwhelming majority, 86 percent, of these low-paid workers are women.
On average, each of these workers misses out on almost AUD 4,000 a year in super, amounting to nearly AUD 150 million nationwide, with women missing out on about AUD 126 million in a single year.
Universal super coverage for all workers is critical to ensure a fair and effective retirement system, particularly for workers who are already at higher risk of being left behind, including young people, women, and those in insecure or part-time work.
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