hence policies oriented to improve gender equality in old age need to be carefully designed considering countryspecific features including labour markets demographic patternsinstitutional configuration and fiscal space as well as family structures and womens lifecourse patterns a key genderrelevant policy choice regards the link between contributions and benefits in other words how tightly work histories should be coupled with pension entitlements and the policy tools available to offset gender differences in paid work earnings and unpaid work such as contribution credits all these policy choices naturally involve setting goals and priorities over the distribution of rights and resources