When I first added long term comprehensive financial life planning to the services my firm provides our clients, I thought that far more women would be interested than would men. But the ratio turned out to be about 50/50.
Why did I think that women would be more interested?
Well, here are a few of the reasons.
70% of baby boomer wives are expected to outlive their husbands.
Women control about $22 trillion dollars in wealth.
Nearly 65% of women expect to live to age 85, while only 50% of men can expect
to live that long. Despite this expectation, women are saving about the same amount for retirement as men.
The majority of American women wait for something to happen, be it positive or negative, before they move to gain control of their finances.
The financial and emotional implications of a life crisis affect women more than
men.
Women take longer than men to reach decisions and are more likely to ask lots of questions and involve others in the decision making process.
A woman’s financial concerns are more likely to affect her work performance than are a man’s.
A woman’s financial concerns are less likely to interfere with her personal
relationships than are a man’s.
Women are less likely than men to be satisfied with their ability to handle
financial emergencies.
Women are more likely than men to be satisfied with their level of savings.
Women are less likely than men to be satisfied with their ability to meet long
term goals,
Women are more likely than men to be dissatisfied with their current financial
situation.
Women save less, know less about investing, and invest more conservatively than
men.
Women are more risk averse than men.
Women are less likely than men to have an idea how much money they will need
in retirement.
A lack of understanding about investing and financial planning is the primary
barrier to saving and investment by women.
Women are more likely than men to carry consumer debt.
Women are less likely than men to take on big-ticket debt.
Women have less confidence in their understanding of financial issues than do
men.
Women are more likely than men to seek out professional advice.
Women are much less confident than men about their earning power.
Women do not save as much, nor do they plan as well as men, for retirement.
Women have less confidence in their money management abilities than do men.
Women are much more likely than men to categorize themselves as “not very
knowledgeable” about investing.
Women live longer, accumulate more chronic (and sometimes costly) health
conditions, have lower lifetime earnings, less pension wealth, and lower social
security benefits than men.
Survivorship issues are women’s issues.
Women earn less, take more time out of the workforce for caregiving, are more
likely to live alone in old age, and suffer from more chronic health conditions than
do their male peers.
Women live longer in retirement than do men and, on average, have less income
and assets at their disposal.
Women who do well in retirement tend to share four characteristics:
- They have financial security;
- They have a strong and independent identity;
- They have a healthy lifestyle; and
- They have secondary employment skills that allow them to supplement
retirement income.
An extremely low risk tolerance in long-term investing may prevent women from
accumulating adequate retirement funds and reaching other long term goals.
Even in marriage, wives are, in general, much less willing to take risks as investors
than husbands.
Men are inclined to feel more competent in financial matters than women do.
Men tend to be more overconfident about their ability to make financial decisions
than are women.
The performance of men is hurt more by excessive trading than is the
performance of women.
Men tend to emphasize their investment successes rather than their failures.
Women are far more likely to say “I don’t want to be old and poor and pushing a
grocery cart down the road” than are men.
Women are far more likely to articulate their fears than are men.
Only 25% of Certified Financial Planners are women.
The average retirement account balance for women 60 and over is 45% lower
than their male counterparts’.
On average, women live 5.3 years longer than men.
Women need to become assertive financial decision-makers regardless of how
little or how much money they earn, their marital status, their work patterns,
their social status, or their net worth.
It is important that women do something for their own retirement with whatever
resources they have available to them.
Empowering a woman to make personal decisions about her well-being
throughout her life is not an easy task because it involves the internal beliefs as
well as the expectations of others as to how women should behave and the
choices they should make.
35 million American women will be 65 years of age or older in the year 2025.In
2007, nearly 60 percent of older women in America were single.
Whether widowed, divorced, or never married, single women face higher poverty
rates than men.
Approximately one in five unmarried elderly women is poor by government
standards.
Women 65 and older have a 44% chance of one day being in a nursing home.
National Institute on Retirement Security: Women are 80 percent more likely to
live in poverty past the age of 65 than their male counterparts. Also, women ages
75 to 79 were three times more likely to have incomes that dip below the poverty
line. Also, women have retirement income that is 25% lower than their male
counterparts.