Women out-save men at every income level yet end the year with balances 30% lower, entirely because men earn more dollars to defer.
When income is held constant, female participants earning between $30,000 and $149,999 hold balances within 10% of their male counterparts, confirming that the gap is salary-driven rather than behavioral.
Only 14% of participants hit the $31,000 catch-up contribution limit, and even among earners over $150,000, half still leave contribution room unused.
Vanguard’s How America Saves 2026 report, drawn from 2025 plan-year data across its defined contribution plans, contains a finding that catches most readers off guard. Women defer a higher share of pay than men in every single income band. Yet the men in the same dataset ended the year with balances roughly 30% higher on both an average and median basis.
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For a 60-year-old sitting on a $900,000 balance, the headline number matters less than the mechanic behind it. That mechanic determines how much you add between now and the day the paychecks stop.
What the Vanguard Numbers Actually Say
Average deferral rates from Figure 32 of the report, by income band, female versus male:
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Under $15,000: Female participants in the lowest earnings tier still contribute at a rate that edges out their male counterparts, at 6.2% vs 6.0%. This band captures part-time and early-career workers, where every percentage point of deferral represents a real household trade-off.
$15,000 to $29,999: The gap widens slightly in favor of women, at 5.8% vs 5.7%. Workers here typically qualify for the Saver’s Credit, which effectively boosts the after-tax return on each dollar deferred.
$30,000 to $49,999: Women continue to out-save men at this level, at 5.9% vs 5.8%. This is the band where auto-enrollment defaults start to matter most, since many participants simply accept whatever rate their plan sets for them.
$50,000 to $74,999: The deferral rates in this middle-income tier come in at 6.9% vs 6.7%. Employer match formulas usually top out somewhere in this range, so hitting the full match is the minimum bar.
$75,000 to $99,999: Rates rise as pay does, landing at 8.1% vs 7.8%. Participants here have enough headroom to push past the match and start building meaningful balances.
$100,000 to $149,999: Higher earners defer more on average, with rates at 9.4% vs 8.8%. This is where nondiscrimination testing and HCE limits sometimes cap what employees can actually contribute.
$150,000 and up: At the top of the income distribution, deferral rates reach 8.7% vs 8.3%. Even here, women edge out men on a rate basis, though the dollar contributions still favor higher-paid participants.
Balances tell a different story. Male participants ended 2025 with an average of $194,597 and a median of $52,309. Female participants averaged $146,476 with a median of $42,139.
Why a Higher Rate Produces Fewer Dollars
A savings rate is a percentage. A 401(k) balance is a pile of dollars. The bridge between them is salary, and salary is where the story turns.
A woman earning $90,000 who defers 8.1% contributes about $7,290 a year. A man earning $130,000 who defers 7.8% contributes about $10,140. She is saving a larger share of her paycheck. He is putting more dollars into the plan. Compound that gap over a career and the balances separate.
The wage backdrop confirms it. Median usual weekly earnings for full-time workers hit $1,251 in the second quarter of 2026, and men in the Vanguard sample tended to earn more than women, which the report itself flags as the primary driver of the balance gap.
Vanguard is direct about it. 57% of its participants are male, and the firm notes that gender is often a proxy for other factors, such as income. Hold income constant and the picture nearly resolves: female participants earning between $30,000 and $149,999 had average balances within 10% of their male counterparts.
Why This Matters at 60 With Serious Money in the Plan
If you are inside the 50-to-70 window with $500,000 to $2.5 million already saved, the practical takeaway concerns the mechanics behind that chart. The last decade of contributions is a dollar-denominated game, and the tax code has quietly stacked the deck in your favor (though a balance that size also sets up a sizable tax bill the year RMDs begin, which we walked through defusing in a free guide here).
Three levers matter more than your deferral percentage at this stage:
Catch-up contributions. Once you turn 50, you can layer the standard catch-up on top of the regular employee limit. For 2025 that pushed the ceiling to $31,000 for those 50 or older versus $23,500 for younger workers. Only 14% of participants hit the statutory maximum, and among those earning over $150,000, just 51% did. Half of high earners are leaving room on the table.
The SECURE 2.0 super catch-up at 60 to 63. A separate, higher catch-up window opens in your early sixties. For a household where one spouse earned less for years, this is the fastest way to close an intra-household balance gap before Social Security starts.
Coordinate household contributions. If one spouse holds the larger paycheck and the other holds the larger deferral rate, run both plans through a single dollar target. The lower earner’s plan may be maxed on a rate basis while still leaving thousands of dollar capacity untouched.
Pull your last pay stub and calculate the actual dollars flowing into your 401(k) this year rather than the percentage. Compare it to the $31,000 catch-up ceiling. If you are under it and cash flow allows, raise the deferral before year-end. If you are married, run the same exercise on your spouse’s plan and treat the two accounts as one bucket.
The women in Vanguard’s data are already doing the harder thing: saving a higher share of a smaller paycheck. The reason their balances trail is arithmetic, and arithmetic is the part of retirement planning you can still control from here.
A $1,000,000 Income Portfolio
If you’ve saved over $1,000,000, this guide is for you. The last thing you want in retirement is to run out of money, you want your money to generate lasting income while you enjoy your life.
Now you can learn the strategies wealthy retirees use to fund their retirement with The Definitive Guide to Retirement Income from Fisher Investments. Download the guide today! (sponsor)
