5 reasons retirement planning is tougher for women

5 reasons retirement planning is tougher for women
September 11, 2014
By Maryalene LaPonsie | Money Rates Columnist

The gender pay gap has garnered all sorts of media and legislative attention, prompting marches, committee hearings and petitions to Washington. There is even an Equal Pay Day (it was April 8 this year) to mark how far into the new year females must work to earn as much as men did the previous year.

While the gender pay gap is a real phenomenon, it has overshadowed another inequality that has the same potential to threaten the long-term financial stability of women: the glaring gender gap in retirement savings.

A 2013 report from the Employee Benefit Research Institute, based on 2011 numbers, found the average IRA owned by a man had a balance of $114,745 while the average balance for a woman was $66,529. At age 70, median balances were $72,971 for men and $42,926 for women.

While this gap is troubling on its face, financial advisers say there are also several reasons why women need to save more aggressively than their male counterparts. Here are five of them.

Click here to read the whole article where Rich As A King co-author (along with Susan Polgar), Doug Goldstein, CFP® was quoted extensively.