Women: Why Saving For Retirement May Be Good For Your Health

Women are more financially powerful than ever before. Not only do they make up half of the U.S. workforce, but they are the primary breadwinners in 4 out of 10 U.S. families.* Yet, according to a recent survey released by TD Ameritrade Holding Corporation (NYSE: AMTD), 75 percent of Women said they have no specific retirement savings goal and nearly 1 in 4 Women (22%) over the age of 23 said they haven’t started saving for retirement yet, compared to only 13 percent of Men.

While women are becoming more financially powerful, some of their financial behaviors don’t necessarily reflect the same evolution. The survey revealed that 38 percent of Women said they started saving for retirement after the age of 34.

“Clearly gender roles have changed over the last 30 to 40 years, and women are contributing more to the financial well-being of their families. And yet, while we’ve seen a shift in the female mind-set in how they think about financial planning, we’re not seeing them actually take action in ways compared to their more engaged male counterparts,” said Lule Demmissie, managing director, investment products and retirement at TD Ameritrade, Inc., a broker-dealer subsidiary of TD Ameritrade Holding Corporation. “There are several legitimate reasons why this may be the case, including much of the financial industry’s poor performance in engaging women around financial planning. Resources like TD Ameritrade’s Life 2.0 ™and LearnVest are an important step in empowering women investors. Women have an opportunity to be much more engaged in the financial process. It’s important for them to take actionable steps in planning for retirement, particularly given their longer life expectancy.”

These behaviors may be contributing to why Women are feeling less secure about their financial futures. According to the survey, 30 percent of Women anticipate they will be financially worse off in retirement compared to their Male counterparts (23%), and 48 percent of Women said they aren’t looking forward to retirement. This lack of financial security about their future could also be impacting how secure they feel today.

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