Inequities in the workplace and in the home cripple women’s ability to save for retirement, said panelists at the 2016 Morningstar Investment Conference in Chicago. As a result, they need access to advice and more time to plan.

The disparity in earnings between men and women during their working years is the key cause of a gap in retirement savings and income during retirement. However, other issues such as longevity exacerbate the financial divide between the genders as they age, said Mark Miller, a Morningstar retirement columnist.

“The income gap translates directly into the retirement gap,” Miller said at "Securing Retirement Success for Women,” a Tuesday panel discussion. “Women have fewer resources to deal with over a longer period of time.

According to the National Women’s Law Center, the earnings disparity over a lifetime costs women a loss of $430,000, and on average they would have to work 11 years longer than men to close the gap, said Miller.

Women also suffer from an advice deficit, said Cindy Hounsell, president of the Women’s Institute for a Secure Retirement, a nonprofit organization dedicated to educating women on retirement issues. She noted that women often don’t participate in conversations with their family’s financial advisor while they're married.

In many instances, women are still completely in the dark about their family finances, even when they are a primary breadwinner — in some cases, intentionally.

“Women are happy in so many families,” Hounsell said. “I once met a Congresswoman who never read her tax return; she just signed her name to whatever her husband brought her. I used to do that, too, because I thought ‘thank God he’s done something.’ The same goes for financial planning.”

When women do attempt to access traditional financial advice, they’re often dissatisfied with what they hear, said Hounsell.

“People start talking about ETFs when they don’t even know what a mutual fund is,” Hounsell said. “Nobody knows the basics, and it doesn’t matter what their income level is. We’ve done studies with nurses, teachers, high-level executives, and they all display the same nervousness around investing.”

As a result, many women aren’t aware that they’ll have to save a larger portion of their income to ensure a successful retirement, and aren’t ready to make independent financial decisions after the death of a spouse or partner, said Hounsell.

Hounsell recommended that advisors direct more effort to involve both spouses in planning meetings.

Miller noted that 70 percent of widows do not retain their family’s financial advisor after the death of a spouse, but involving both partners in advisor meetings could improve client-retention.

The earnings deficit can’t be viewed simply as a wage or a pay gap because women are more likely to be a family’s primary caregiver, and thus spend more time away from the workplace to care for young children or elderly parents. Such interruptions can cost women experience, raises and career advancement.

Hounsell says that legislation addressing the ‘caregiving gap’ in benefits and earnings has been proposed, but not passed through Congress.

Miller noted that lower pay and fewer years worked results in a gap in Social Security benefits between women and men. While couples can use their spousal benefits in optimization strategies to address the gap, single women remain at a significant disadvantage.

“It makes sense for the higher earner to delay filing somewhat,” Miller said. “If, true to the demographics, the man is outlived by his spouse, she will step up to 100 percent of his benefits when he passes away. That’s the survivor benefit.”

Women often also save less than men in workplace retirement plans and IRAs, yet they live longer than their male partners. Miller argued that women should resist the temptation to become more aggressive investors in search of higher returns.

“If there’s a gap you want to close, you want to close it by starting earlier in savings, saving more, and saving holistically,” Miller said.

Part of the gap can be attributed to men’s greater knowledge and comfort with investing, said Hounsell, “Generally, women don’t see themselves as experts when it comes to investing.”

That’s not the same as saying that women are worse than men at investing, said Miller, noting that women tend to get higher returns than men over time, and are very successful when engaged in goals-based planning.

To some extent, women are already responding to the retirement challenge, said Miller, quoting recent Vanguard research that found that more women are participating in pension plans, and that women earning less than $100,000 annually are saving more than men despite earning less.

Women are also able to stay in the workforce longer, which may help address the retirement savings disparity, Miller said.