Women are more likely to be impoverished in old age compared to men, according to a new study from Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Co. Women retirees and pre-retirees expect to exhaust their retirement savings five years early, while men expect their retirement savings to last beyond their retirement, according to the report.
The average woman makes 84 cents on the dollar that a male worker earns, according to the Economic Policy Institute. In addition to earning less, women tend to live longer than men and are more likely to take time away from the workforce to raise children -- 51 percent of moms who elect to stay home have no plan for retirement, according to a report from Transamerica Center for Retirement Studies.
Women are also more reliant upon Social Security benefits for income in retirement. On average, women expect Social Security to cover 58 percent of their expenses while 18 percent expect their benefits to cover all of their expenses in retirement. This perspective is evidenced in women’s likelihood to collect their benefits early -- roughly 74 percent of women collect early, which results in lower lifetime income, according to recent survey from Nationwide Retirement Institute.
As a result, women are at a higher risk for being under-prepared for retirement, but more likely to seek help than men. Seventy-nine percent of retired women are receiving professional financial advice, compared to only 68 percent of men, MassMutual said.
“The difficulty that many women face in preparing for retirement leads many to anticipate living less comfortably in retirement and running out of money five years too soon, a stunning development from a retirement-planning perspective,” said Teresa Hassara, head of MassMutual’s Workplace Solutions. “The one positive note is that women express greater openness to financial education and getting professional financial advice, both of which present opportunities for financial advisors to help women avoid the prospect of poverty in old age.”
On average, women retirees and pre-retirees expect to live 25 years in retirement while men expect to live 23 years, according to MassMutual’s Women’s Retirement Risk Study.
Men have more confidence in their retirement savings. Women expect their retirement income to last only 20 years -- five years below their anticipated time in retirement, as compared with men who believe their retirement income will last for 25 years -- a two-year cushion of retirement income.
Women retirees and pre-retirees are less likely to make accurate predictions about how long their savings will last. Forty-three percent of women are unsure how long their retirement savings will last (as compared with one third of men). On average, retired women anticipate living 30 years in retirement, while pre-retiree women expect to live only 21 years, according to the study.
Division In Retirement Confidence
Women anticipated more financial strain in retirement than their male counterparts. A number of factors contribute to the lack of retirement confidence in women. The study found women had lower confidence in areas including managing and optimizing Social Security, replacing a higher percentage of pre-retirement income, managing savings and investments, and taking investment risk, according to the report.