Bad News For Women: Need to Save More
photo credit: ralphbijker
Women are facing a financial problem. They generally earn less and start saving later, but they live longer than men: so how will they have enough money to fund their retirement?
According to a recent study, the financial gap between men and women is actually getting wider, and the statistics are a bit scary:
- Women live on average 22 years more after they retire, but men live for just 19 years - so women need to save more money
- Women generally start saving or investing their money later than men - between 2 - 4 years later, on average, so they end up with less
- Women invest a lower percentage of their income on the whole - just 7.3% compared to men who invest 8.1%
- Women tend to have a lot more gaps in their work history as they stop working to have children, and they miss out then not just on their salary but on savings, investments, pension contributions and rises in salary
On top of all these problems, the study showed that women were less knowledgeable about managing their finances in general and the end result is that a a large majority of women aren’t able to maintain the lifestyle they’d like after they retire. So if you’re a woman and reading this, make plans to fix this imbalance now so you can enjoy your retirement as much as men do.
Tags: Finances | Salaries | savings | Women
This entry was posted on Thursday, July 31st, 2008 at 3:30 am and is filed under Financial Planning. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
