Gender Split on Retirement Worries
The Wall Street Journal - July 27, 2008
The complexity of preparing financially for retirement can make anyone nervous -- but a new survey finds women are more worried than men about the challenges ahead, particularly inflation, health-care costs and outliving retirement savings.
Eighty-three percent of women surveyed are very or somewhat concerned about how inflation will affect their ability to pay expenses in retirement, compared with 69% of men, according to the survey of about 1,200 pre-retirees and retirees, ages 45 through 74, all of whom had some retirement savings.
Eighty-seven percent of women are worried about the rising cost of health care, versus 77% of men, and 64% of women are concerned about outliving their retirement assets, compared with 46% of men, according to the survey by Hartford Financial Services Group, an insurance and financial-services company, and MIT's AgeLab, a research group focused on the older population.
Thirty-six percent of women are concerned about managing their nest egg in retirement, compared with 19% of men.
The only area where more men than women said they're worried was related to retirement activities, with 19% of men worried about not having enough to do in retirement, versus about 17% of women.
"The greatest disparity we found between genders was along financial matters," says Stephanie Chappell, corporate financial gerontologist with Hartford.
Women have good reason to be worried, she says. Thanks in part to lower pay and less time in the work force -- women work an average of 12 fewer years than men, according to the study -- women's median retirement income is just 58% of men's.
Women also often outlive their husbands.
Yet it's valuable, financially speaking, to be married: Among those 65 and older, 28% of single women and 23% of single men are poor or close to poor, compared with just 8% of married people in that age group, according to the study, which cites data from 2004 from Boston College's Center for Retirement Research.
Women are more likely to be single: Among those 65 and older, 60% of women are single, compared with 29% of men. When a woman's husband dies, her income drops 50% on average, while expenses decrease only 20%, Ms. Chappell says.
The survey did not assess whether women are worried because they are aware of these specific challenges or for other reasons.
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