If you are a woman in the workplace, you know what “women pay inequality” means: You need to work over 3 more months to earn what your man did last year. Sounds unfair?
According to a report from the White House, full-time working women earn 23% less than their male counterparts. Translated to working days, it equals to approximately 60 business days or three months into each year. Well, as you know, I’m no young chick, and if you are getting near or into your retirement years, the horror doesn’t stop there. If you earn less, you have fewer options to save, with a greater impact in your golden years and into retirement.
In addition, and to make an even gloomier panorama, in all developed countries and most undeveloped ones, women live longer than men. As a group, women outlive men, sometimes as much as 10 years.
In 2011 life expectancy was 78.7 years In the United States, which is slightly below the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) average of 80.1. The OECD is an international organization that promotes policies that will improve the economic and social well-being of people around the world. Their members include the most advance countries in the world and some so-called “emerging” economies such as Chile, Mexico and Turkey.
Men in the USA expect to live an average of 76 years, while women reach 81 in life expectancy. Although the gap has been closing in in recent decades, gender discrepancy is most pronounced in the very old: among centenarians worldwide, women outnumber men nine to one.
So how does a woman who lives to 90 or 95 years old stretch her already meager savings?
A December report by the Employee Benefit Research Institute found that “the current median in a 401(k) savings account is just about $18,000.” The median retirement income for women in 2010 was just 59 percent that of men, according to the U.S. Government Accountability Office..
For many women, gender inequality doesn’t end at the workplace but it follows them into their retirement years. In fact, women are almost twice as likely as men to live below the poverty line during retirement, with single and minority women struggling the most.
In your view, it this fair? What can be done to solve the gap and help women live a decent retirement life?
Try this Calculator: Will you have enough to retire?
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LIFE BELOW THE POVERTY LINE |
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| Population | Male poverty rate | Female poverty rate |
| All 65 and older | 6.6% | 11% |
| Married | 4.7% | 4.9% |
| Widowed | 10.1% | 14.5% |
| Divorced | 12.2% | 17.1% |
| Separated | 10.8% | 35.4% |
| Never married | 15.7% | 23.2% |
| White | 4.6% | 8.6% |
| Black | 13.2% | 21.3% |
| Asian | 11.6% | 11.9% |
| Hispanic | 19.1% | 21.8% |
Source: GAO analysis of Census data for 2012
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