Doesn't divorce law fix this anyway?

Partially, and only at divorce: the Versorgungsausgleich automatically splits the pension rights earned during the marriage years. It does not cover the years before the marriage, it does not help couples who stay together, and it can be modified by a marriage contract. Treating it as the safety net means betting your retirement on a divorce happening.

I have a mini-job. Does it count for my pension?

Since 2013, mini-jobs are pension-insured by default, and the small own contribution buys full-value insurance months, which count toward waiting periods like the five-year minimum and the 45-year early-retirement door. Many sign the opt-out form at hiring without knowing what the months are worth. If you opted out, you can, since July 2026, revoke that choice once, effective from the month after your application, for the remainder of the job.

What does the survivor's pension actually pay?

The large survivor's pension is 55 percent of the deceased partner's pension under current law (60 percent under the old law for marriages from before 2002 where one partner was born before 1962), and own income above an allowance is counted against it. It is a meaningful backstop and a poor plan: it requires the partner to die first, shrinks with the survivor's own income, and ends on remarriage. All three properties argue for own entitlements over derived ones.

We are not married. Which of these levers work for us?

Fewer than people assume: Rentensplitting and survivor pensions are tied to marriage or registered partnership. The levers that remain, deliberate assignment of child-raising credits and direct compensation into the partner's name, are exactly the ones unmarried couples should know exist.

The gender pension gap: your own number, and the levers that actually move it

Women in Germany build up around 27 percent less own pension entitlement than men. You have probably seen that statistic. What you have probably never seen: your own version of it, in euros per month, and which of the four levers would actually close it.

Women in Germany build up around 27 percent less own pension entitlement than men (27.1 percent, 2023). You have probably seen that statistic. What you have probably never seen is your own version of it: the gap between the two pension records in your household, in euros per month, and which of the four available levers would actually close it. The statistic is about the country. The levers are about you.

This article is information, not financial or legal advice. It describes mechanisms and their effects; the choice between them is yours.

Where the gap comes from, mechanically

The statutory pension pays for pension points, and points track individual gross earnings, year by year. Every structural difference in careers therefore lands in the pension record with full force and decades of delay: the pay gap (16 percent unadjusted, 2024), the part-time decade after children, the years in mini-jobs without insurance, the interrupted promotions. The pension system does not create the gap; it faithfully archives it, then pays it out for thirty years. That mechanical honesty is also the good news: every lever below works through the same arithmetic, so its effect is computable in advance.

Lever one: assign the child-raising credits deliberately

Up to three years of pension points per child are credited to the parent who mainly raised the child (Kindererziehungszeiten, Section 56 SGB VI), by default the mother, but couples can jointly declare the father instead, or split periods. For most couples the default is also the sensible allocation, since the credit approximates an average wage and replaces the lower earner's missing years. But couples where the mother out-earns the father, or where the father took the longer leave, should know the declaration exists and has deadlines: it generally works only for the future and at most two months retroactively.

Lever two: Rentensplitting, the pension version of a joint account

Married couples and registered partners can, under conditions, split the pension entitlements earned during the marriage equally between them (Rentensplitting, Sections 120a following, SGB VI): the marriage must date from 2002 onward, or both partners must be born after 1961, and each partner generally needs 25 years of pension-relevant periods. It is voluntary, done by joint declaration, typically at retirement, and it is an alternative to the survivor's pension, not an addition: choosing splitting means waiving the Witwenrente or Witwerrente. The trade, roughly: splitting gives the lower-earning partner a higher own pension that is theirs regardless of what happens and, unlike a survivor's pension, is not counted against own income. Whether the trade is favorable depends on the pension difference, both partners' life expectancy and the survivor's other income; a genuinely two-sided comparison that deserves real numbers.

Lever three: compensate directly, while the gap is being created

Nothing stops the full-time partner from funding the part-time partner's retirement provision directly while the gap is being created: contributions into her private retirement products or ETF savings plan, in her name, sized to the pension points she is not earning. This lever has no legal machinery, which is exactly its advantage: no deadlines, no waiver of survivor benefits, full flexibility, and the money is legally hers immediately. Its size is easy to reason about: an average-earner year currently brings roughly one point, so a 50 percent part-time year leaves about half a point, and the monthly value of a point is public. The comparison with lever two is not obvious in either direction, which is why one shared projection beats instinct.

Lever four: the part-time percentage itself

The least discussed lever is the largest: the difference between 50 and 70 percent hours, sustained for eight years, usually dwarfs every compensation mechanism above, through salary, points and career trajectory at once. This is not a recommendation to work more; care work is work, and households weigh more than money. It is a reason to run the numbers per percentage point before treating the part-time fraction as fixed. Many households discover the step from 50 to 60 percent changes the 30-year picture more than any product they were considering buying.

Your number, not the statistic

Every lever above is arithmetic on your two pension records and your household's plans. Miravel holds both partners in one simulation: it shows each person's projected pension and the gap between them, and lets you simulate the levers that live in your own plans, the part-time percentage and additional savings in either partner's name, over the decades with visible assumptions. The statutory levers, assigning the child-raising credits and Rentensplitting, are declarations you make to Deutsche Rentenversicherung; the simulation gives you the numbers to take into that conversation. The country's statistic will not change this year. Your household's version of it can.

Sources

Statistisches Bundesamt, Gender Pension Gap (27.1 percent, 2023) and Gender Pay Gap (16 percent, 2024): destatis.de
SGB VI, Section 56 (child-raising credits), Sections 120a to 120e (Rentensplitting), Sections 46, 97 (survivor pensions, income counting): gesetze-im-internet.de/sgb_6
Deutsche Rentenversicherung, Rentensplitting and Kindererziehungszeiten: deutsche-rentenversicherung.de
Minijob-Zentrale, pension insurance in mini-jobs: minijob-zentrale.de

Frequently asked questions

Doesn't divorce law fix this anyway?: Partially, and only at divorce: the Versorgungsausgleich automatically splits the pension rights earned during the marriage years. It does not cover the years before the marriage, it does not help couples who stay together, and it can be modified by a marriage contract. Treating it as the safety net means betting your retirement on a divorce happening.
I have a mini-job. Does it count for my pension?: Since 2013, mini-jobs are pension-insured by default, and the small own contribution buys full-value insurance months, which count toward waiting periods like the five-year minimum and the 45-year early-retirement door. Many sign the opt-out form at hiring without knowing what the months are worth. If you opted out, you can, since July 2026, revoke that choice once, effective from the month after your application, for the remainder of the job.
What does the survivor's pension actually pay?: The large survivor's pension is 55 percent of the deceased partner's pension under current law (60 percent under the old law for marriages from before 2002 where one partner was born before 1962), and own income above an allowance is counted against it. It is a meaningful backstop and a poor plan: it requires the partner to die first, shrinks with the survivor's own income, and ends on remarriage. All three properties argue for own entitlements over derived ones.
We are not married. Which of these levers work for us?: Fewer than people assume: Rentensplitting and survivor pensions are tied to marriage or registered partnership. The levers that remain, deliberate assignment of child-raising credits and direct compensation into the partner's name, are exactly the ones unmarried couples should know exist.

Miravel shows both pension records in your household, the gap between them, and what the part-time percentage and additional savings change, over decades. Your data stays in your browser. Start free now.