07/24/06 - The Future for Boomer Women Looks Grim
By: Investor Solutions, Inc.
Baby boomer women are in for a rude awakening. You don't really have to care, but you should. Why? Because women will soon make up the majority of older Americans by 2050, and policy makers are ill prepared to deal with the potential financial burden that this could imply for America. A recent study published by the Harvard Generations Policy Program and the Global Generations Policy Institute suggests that female baby boomers face insecure financial futures, especially as compared to previous generations. Absent some radical shifts in policy, baby boomer women (particularly minority women) will face a retirement of ongoing financial struggle.
Almost ten years have passed since the 1995 White House Conference on Aging issued its warning, and no comprehensive policies dealing with the aging of the nation's baby boomers have been formulated to address the coming demographic and societal challenges.[1] Policy makers, and the public itself, have long ignored the needs of these women as they approach retirement with insufficient resources.
Unfortunately, boomer women face unique risk factors that previous generations did not: they live longer, marriages are less stable than before, many have been single parents (creating additional financial responsibilities for them), and many are solely responsible for the care giving of aging relatives. Women in general continue to face prevalent financial challenges that men do not, including prevalent earnings disparity (76% of what men make for equal job), sex discrimination and inadequate health insurance coverage. All of these risks, compounded, have resulted in a large part of our aging population facing a frighteningly difficult retirement.
Summary of Major Findings[2]
- If differences in poverty rates by sex, marital status and race continue, overall poverty rates among aging boomer women will considerably increase among future boomer retirees.
- Compared with male retirees, boomer women will have lower wealth and incomes, higher poverty rates, and a larger share whose incomes are below 45 percent of the average national wage.
- Boomer women as a group earn less than many men. In addition to increased housing expenses, a growing proportion of retiring boomer women will have to pay for their retirement health benefits.
- From 2020 to 2030, when older boomer women will be 64 to 74, they are projected to face an income shortfall of at least $400 billion dollars.
- Social Security and pension plans are designed to work well for people with stable career employment, but not for those boomer women who interrupted their work years to care for children or loved ones.
- Women's life histories and the way they interact with employer-sponsored benefit plans, individual savings and insurance plans, Social Security, and other social safety net programs often create financial shortfalls.
- More than half of working women do not have access to pensions or other retirement plans. And those who are fortunate enough to have access to health and retirement plans are now contributing to those plans out of their smaller paychecks leaving them less money to save for the future.
Facing the Challenges
While the principles of retirement planning are the same for both sexes, women encounter a unique set of challenges that men don't, requiring them to plan even more. From the individual's perspective, the steps are fairly obvious:
- Get involved in the household finances and get informed
- Stay out of debt
- Take advantage of employer sponsored plans
- Don't have a corporate retirement plan-start your own individual retirement accounts
- Establish your long term goals (future income needs, time horizon, etc)
- Determine a target asset amount
- Save lavishly for yourself
- Identify an appropriate investment policy
- Invest soundly and monitor progress on regular basis
- Update your portfolio as your life changes or as you approach retirement
Furthermore, any woman who stays out of the work force for any extended period of time take full advantage of Spousal IRA's and taxable investment accounts during their child rearing years. If possible, women should make it a part of the marital pact!
From the perspective of our policymakers, the task seems much more daunting. The study urges our leaders to recognize the singular needs of these women and to develop policies that address this reality. It further suggests that we create strong public and private sector "safety nets" to ensure that this broad population stays out of poverty. One way or another, America will have to face this growing problem, and women themselves must actively participate in finding a solution.
To read the study in its entirety, visit: http://www.genpolicy.com/
[1] 2005 White House Conference on Aging, "Living Younger Longer: Baby Boomer Challenges"
[2] Baby Boomer Women: Secure Futures or Not?, Paul Hodge, Director Harvard Generations Policy Program
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