Women Worry About Retirement

The majority of women have a poor outlook on retirement, the Nationwide Retirement Institute found in a Harris Poll survey.

A mere 25%—vs. 31% last year—expect life will improve once full-time employment ends. Surveyed were 1,012 adults—473 being women—ages 50 and older who are either retired or planning to retire in the next 10 years. Another of this year’s findings: 26% of women said life in retirement is, or they expect it to be, worse. Their primary concerns are the continuation of Social Security and rising health care costs.

On average, women expect Social Security to cover 58% of their expenses in retirement. Eighteen percent look to it to cover between 91% and 100%. Nonetheless, 75% worry that Social Security will run out of funding in their lifetime, up from 62% last year. Fifty-eight percent believe the Trump administration will make cuts to Social Security. Among retirees, 26% say health care expenses are keeping them from living the life they would like to be living.

According to additional research by the LIMRA Secure Retirement Institute (SRI), single retirees, particularly single women, are more concerned about outliving their savings. While 71% of married retirees are confident they will maintain their chosen lifestyle, this is true for only 64% of single retirees. Additionally, 40% of single retirees overall believe their savings will run out before age 90, as do nearly half of single women.

“We have long known that longevity risk is greater for women,” says Jafor Iqbal, assistant vice president at LIMRA SRI. “Because essential living expenses are proportionately higher for single-person households than [for couple households], the risk of running out of money is greater for all single people as they age,” Iqbal says. “Today, there are 47.5 million single Americans who are age 65 or older.”