Retirement Planning – Why It’s Different For Women

By Susan Williams

Many baby boomers are looking forward to retirement and are financially planning for the day when they can trade in their working lives for a life of leisure.

But the process of planning for retirement isn’t necessarily the same for everyone.

Specifically women may have some unique challenges that make retirement planning quite different for them.

Here are just a few things that women have to consider when planning for retirement;

Women Live Longer

On average, women are now living to around 81 compared to the life expectancy of 76 for men. This is about 5 more years that women have to ensure that they have the necessary finances in place to support them.

According to a report published by the Urban Institute, millions of women will live a third of their lifetimes after they reach their 60s. If women don’t have enough savings to cover these years they are at high risk to experience poverty in their old age.

The Wage Gap

In a report published on the wage gap between men and women, they estimated that due to pay inequalities a women could lose $500,000 over the course of a full time career.

This financial situation not only impacts their daily living but also their ability to contribute to retirement savings plans along with eligibility for pension plans.

Women As Caregivers

According to the National Center of Caregiving, approximately 66% of all caregivers are women and spend 50% more time as a caregiver then men do.

Being a caregiver takes time and energy and may cause a career interruption, a need to shift to part time work and possibly even job loss. As well there is a great deal of physical and emotional energy that is also needed to play this role.

Being a caregiver can affect both a women’s health and financial well being as they try to plan for their retirement.

Women and Divorce

Grey divorce impacts both men and women’s financial health however it often does have a larger impact on women.

Some of the challenges that women can face is that they have not made the same amount of money over the course of the marriage often due to staying home to raise a family or being employed in part time positions and to suddenly try and ramp up their income in a short period of time can put them at a higher financial risk in retirement.

There are a number of challenges that women face when financially preparing for retirement. By focusing on issues such as the gender gap, increasing financial management programs specifically designed for women and increasing a woman’s knowledge in managing their money hopefully this situation will improve.

Here is more about this situation in the following video from CBS;



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