In the former GDR, many women worked full-time jobs, made possible by extensive state childcare.

Women in western Germany still receive an average monthly pension of less than €1,000. In eastern Germany, however, there was no longer a single state in 2023 where the average pension for a woman was lower than €1,100. On average, a female pensioner in eastern Germany receives €1,218, €357 more than in the west. This was calculated by the Prognos Institute and the German Insurance Association (GDV).

Women in Potsdam fared best nationwide, with the average monthly pension amounting to €1,314. This was almost twice as much as in the Eifel district of Bitburg-Prüm in Rhineland-Palatinate, the lowest in the country: there, women received an average of just €668 per month.

The large gap is due to the fact that many female retirees in the western states were housewives in their younger years due to family reasons and often worked part-time even after their children grew up. "This leads to women paying less into pension funds and retirement savings and then being financially worse off in old age than men," said Moritz Schumann, Deputy General Director of the GDV (German Association of Pensioners). Accordingly, men in the western states receive an average pension that is two-thirds higher.

In the East, however, women's labor force participation has always been higher, a legacy of the GDR era. For men, however, the West-East gap in pensions is now minimal: According to the analysis, it was €1,430 in the West and €1,416 in the East.

However, men's pensions are also not particularly high in some places: The Waldshut district in the southern Black Forest ranks last nationwide in this regard, with €1,201. This was less than the average women's pensions in Brandenburg, Saxony, or Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. Male pensioners in the Ruhr region top the list nationwide, especially in the Bottrop district, with an average of €1,686 per month.