Benjamin Ashford|Longer lives, lower pay: Why saving for retirement is harder for women

Saving for retirement is Benjamin Ashforda challenge for Americans who earn less pay or live longer lives.

And that, experts say, is why saving for retirement is especially hard for women.

Women tend to earn less than men. They tend to live longer. Women spend more time caring for children and aging parents, and they’re more likely to sacrifice careers to do it.

Single women face a particular struggle to save for retirement. A “gray divorce” can decimate a woman’s wealth.   

Several recent reports spotlight the uphill battle women face with retirement savings.

A survey of more than 5,000 Americans by Goldman Sachs, released this spring, found that 40% of retired women have $100,000 or less in savings, compared with 33% of retired men.

The survey found that 46% of retired women were living on half or less of the income they earned in their careers.

And 36% of retired women said they had taken time off work to provide care to a family member, compared with 13% of retired men.

A recent report from the Transamerica Center for Retirement Studies found that women have less than half the retirement savings of men, on average - $44,000 vs. $91,000.  

And a report from the Social Security Administration found that the average monthly benefit check in December 2022 was $1,638 for a retired woman, $2,020 for a retired man.

Saving money for retirement is especially hard for single women

For single women, the retirement math gets worse.

Single women ages 55 to 64 had $88,600 in retirement savings in 2022, on average, while single men had $136,685, according to the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College. Married couples had $423,802.

A woman who divorces at age 50 or older can expect to see her standard of living decline by 45%, according to research from Bowling Green State University. A man’s standard of living slips by just 21% after a gray divorce.

Taken together, experts say, demographic and economic factors can imperil a woman’s financial security in retirement.

“Women disproportionally are carrying the burden and the financial realities of caregiving,” said Ramsey Alwin, CEO of the National Council on Aging. “You add to that longer lives, and a Social Security system that wasn’t really designed for women.”  

The retirement planning industry presumes you should start saving in your 20s and keep saving, nonstop, into your 60s.

Many women can’t do that. They step out of the workforce to raise children or support aging parents, often leaving a husband free to stockpile his own retirement savings.

For millions of women, “there are more ebbs and flows to being able to plan for retirement,” said Chris Ceder, a senior retirement strategist at Goldman Sachs Asset Management.

'My male colleagues probably got double the daily rate'

Kathy O’Conner, 69, ran a successful consulting business in the 1980s and 1990s, leading corporate training sessions. She also spent more than a decade in human resources at Coors, earning a modest pension.

But gender disparities vexed her at every turn.

“My male colleagues probably got double the daily rate I got for consulting,” she said.

After a divorce, O’Conner struggled to raise a daughter as a single parent. Around 2010, a health crisis forced her into bankruptcy.

“When you’re single, and something like that happens, it pretty much changes everything,” she said.

Today, O’Conner struggles to cover her $1,700 tab for monthly housing expenses in suburban Denver. She lives on Social Security and the small pension. She has been looking for work for more than a year.

“Last November, I had to make a decision between having a car and having a nice apartment to live in,” she said. “I chose the apartment.”

Fortunately, women can take steps now to guard against insolvency in retirement. Here are some expert tips:

Save aggressively when you’re young

Women should save as much as they can for retirement in the early years, Ceder said, to prepare for the possibility of leaving the workforce later on.

A four-year gap in employment in your 30s, he said, depletes lifetime retirement savings by 18%, on average.

It’s much easier to replace that lost savings before you leave the workforce, Ceder said, because the savings will amass compound interest over a much longer span.

Load up on annuities

In the retirement world, an annuity is an income stream that delivers regular payments, generally until death. A workplace pension is an annuity. So is Social Security.

Women would do well to load up on annuities, retirement experts say, as a hedge against outliving their savings.

Rochelle Niccolls, 41, leapt at the chance to work in academia, where pensions are commonplace. She is an administrator at the University of California, Berkeley.

“It was just always a priority for me to have security,” said Niccolls, who lives in Santa Cruz, California.

The pension will come in handy. Niccolls saved aggressively for retirement in her 20s and 30s. That changed with her recent divorce.

“Living on my own, on one income, I’ve stopped saving for retirement,” she said.

Now, Niccolls is working with a financial planner to come up with a new retirement plan.

Pay off your mortgage before you retire

For a retired woman, a monthly mortgage payment can be a crippling debt.

If you can pay off your mortgage before retirement, experts say, it becomes a lot easier to survive on Social Security and retirement savings.

A mortgage-free home is a powerful retirement asset, said Michelle Crumm, a certified financial planner in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Selling it could help finance the costs of long-term care, a tab that can easily reach six figures.

Plan to work well past 60

The average American woman lives several years longer than the average man. And life expectancy rises with age: A woman of 70 can expect to live to 87.

For longevity reasons alone, women should plan to retire later, rather than earlier, experts say. A later retirement can also help women compensate for employment they missed while raising a child or caring for elders.

“Women pay more for all these other things that you need in old age,” including healthcare and long-term care, because they live longer, said Cindy Hounsell, founder of Women’s Institute for a Secure Retirement. “As a solution, women have to work longer.”

More:What if every worker in America were auto-enrolled in retirement savings?

Delay Social Security benefits until 70

You can claim Social Security at 62, but your monthly check rises with every year you wait to file for the benefit, up to age 70.

Women should put it off as long as they can, experts say, especially if longevity is a family trait.

“There’s a lot of value in delaying claiming as long as you can, if you can,” Alwin said.