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Women face uphill path toward retirement, study shows

09/27/11

A study released by the MetLife Mature Market Institute recently found that women who participate actively in financial planning, whether with a partner or alone, have a better chance of securing a comfortable retirement plan than women who are somewhat passive about financial planning and forecasting.

The study found that women face a number of unique risks as they age, including longevity and an increased probability that they will outlive some of their benefits, statistically lower retirement incomes and higher healthcare costs. Though the study found that these issues concern ageing women, only 44 percent of respondents said they had made financial contingency plans, and 16 percent said that they planned to delay retirement by an average of four years.

"The combination of risks for women and their relatively inadequate retirement planning has become known as the 'perilous paradox,' but the message is clear that women are able to avoid that," said Sandra Timmermann, director of the MetLife Mature Market Institute.

The paradoxes for women are not limited to longevity and poor planning. Statistics show that women face divergent financial aging policies in a number of different arenas. While their aging health costs are higher than the average male, for instance, they receive lower retirement payments.

According to the Insurance Information Institute, about one in three Americans owned an individual insurance policy in 2010, the lowest level in 50 years. 

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