In addition to balancing work and family life, single parents often face financial challenges: they are less able to make provisions for retirement than traditional families. They also feel less well informed about their own retirement provisions.

High costs for external childcare and loss of income due to part-time work: it is well known that single parents are under greater financial pressure than families with two parents. According to the national poverty monitoring report, published on November 26, 2025, by the Federal Social Insurance Office, the risk of poverty is significantly higher for separated parents than for two-parent families. Mothers are particularly affected, as they usually take on the lion's share of childcare responsibilities and therefore have more limited employment opportunities than fathers. The latest AXA Pension Monitor now provides concrete figures on the inequality between single-parent households and two-parent families – particularly with regard to retirement provision.

Less knowledge about retirement planning and fewer financial resources

The AXA survey shows that financial constraints make it significantly more difficult for single parents to set aside money for retirement. 63% said that they find saving for retirement challenging. Families seem to be less affected by this, at 35%.

However, single parents not only have fewer financial resources at their disposal, they also lag behind families in terms of their knowledge of retirement planning: 51% of single parents stated that they do not feel sufficiently informed about their retirement planning. The figure for families was significantly lower at 33%. "We assume that this is partly due to the fact that single-parent households have fewer resources available for their own retirement planning and therefore do not even bother to address the issue. On the other hand, their childcare responsibilities also mean that they have less time to deal with their retirement planning situation in detail," explains Markus Lack, Head of Private Retirement Planning at AXA.

Two-parent families take more pension measures than single parents

While around 62% of families have taken pension measures and pay into pillar 3a, the figure for single parents is only 43%. In addition, 29% of families have taken out life insurance, compared to only half as many (around 15%) in single-parent households. 16% of families stated that they had not taken any pension measures at all, while among single parents, as many as 33% have not yet made any provisions for their retirement.

When single parents were asked what kind of support they would like to see in terms of retirement provision, they cited financial relief for childcare responsibilities (58%) and an improvement in the work-life balance (44%) as factors that would help improve their situation.

It is important to address your own pension situation at an early stage – this applies in general, but especially to vulnerable groups such as single-parent households, advises Markus Lack. He adds: "Regular payments are worthwhile for single parents even if only small contributions can be made." In addition to the fact that pension contributions to pillar 3a can be deducted from taxable income up to the maximum amount, early contributions over a longer period of time also benefit from compound interest. Interest is then credited not only on the capital paid in, but also on the interest already earned.

About the pension monitor

The AXA Pension Monitor was conducted by Sotomo. It is based on an online survey of 1,604 people and the results are representative of the German- and French-speaking population of Switzerland.