Women, work and retirement

1
Women, work and retirement

• Prof Susan Dann
• National Seniors Productive Ageing Centre

2
Overview

• Mature aged work and phased retirement study
• Women and retirement in Australia
• Past policies and future trends

3
Study Objectives

• To identify how to increase the participation of
  mature aged workers in the labour market
• To identify barriers to participation
• To identify costs and benefits involved in
  engaging mature aged workers from both an
  individual and organisational perspective

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Sample

• 3,000 members of National Seniors aged 50 and
  over
• Member response rate of 30.8 giving 413 male and
  493 female respondents
• 41.5 were not retired, the remainder were in
  various stages of retirement (eg retired but
  doing volunteer or part time work) with only 13
  fully retired

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Issues Covered

• Objective data collected on demographics, income,
  employment status etc
• Attitudes to work and retirement including
• Job satisfaction
• Work centrality
• Retirement satisfaction
• Mature age worker stereotypes
• Planning activities pre-retirement

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Key Finding

• Inverse relationship between economic well being
  and participation

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Gender Issues

• In most analyses conducted there were relatively
  few significant differences between the men and
  women except for issues related to financial well
  being
• Given the importance of economic well being as an
  indicator of work patterns and retirement
  satisfaction this is critical

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Results

• Pre-retirement income
• Men most likely to be in the 40-55,000 group
• Women most likely to be in the 25-40,000
• 25 of women earned less than 25,000 while just
  under 10 of men did
• 20 of men but only 5 of women earned more than
  70,000

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Results

• Retirement income
• Men concentrated in the 25-40,000 group (37)
  with 6 on less than 10,000
• Women concentrated in the 10-25,000 group (34)
  with 20 on less than 10,000
• Women were more likely than men to source their
  main retirement income from the pension
• Women more likely than men to work in retirement
• Men had a greater income from investments

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Results (attitudes)

• Women less satisfied with pre-retirement income
  and significantly more concerned with economic
  well being
• Women were not only more likely to work but were
  more likely to work for financial reasons and
  also work longer hours
• Women reported higher levels of work centrality,
  organisational commitment and job satisfaction

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Results (planning)

• Overall planning for retirement was poor
• Men and women displayed the same patterns of
  planning, with a strong focus on financial
  planning
• But
• Womens involvement in planning occurred at much
  lower levels with the exception of stress
  management

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Women in Retirement

• Experience of women in the survey broadly
  reflects the experience of women in Australia
• Women in retirement currently have significantly
  more financial problems than men

13
Women in Australia

• retire earlier and live longer than men
• are more likely to be fully dependent on an aged
  pension
• have lower access to paid employment after
  retirement age which, although the gap is
  systematically being narrowed, is still lower for
  women than for men
• have significantly lower levels of superannuation
  than men
• have significantly lower levels of savings and
• are more likely to live alone due to rising
  divorce rates combined with longevity and the
  likelihood that they will outlive their spouses

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Overview of Retirement Income in Australia

• Three pillars
• a taxpayer funded means-tested aged pension for
  people who are unable to fully support themselves
  in retirement
• a minimum level of compulsory employer
  superannuation contributions made in respect of
  those in the workforce (introduced in 1992) and
• voluntary private superannuation and other
  savings.

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Past Policies, Future Trends

• The ability of people to support themselves in
  retirement therefore is strongly linked to life
  time earnings
• Women have not earned as much as men due to a
  variety of factors two of the most important of
  which are interrupted career patterns and the
  persistence of the gender wage gap

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Past Policies, Future Trends

• Interrupted careers
• Becoming less of a problem for those entering the
  work force now but the legacy of lack of child
  care and community expectations will be felt for
  those entering retirement for the next twenty
  years
• Social pressure on women as carers not only for
  children but parents and partners problem is
  less but has not disappeared

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Past Policies, Future Trends

• Gender wage gap
• Principles of equal pay have been accepted since
  the 1970s however women still earn less than men
  on average
• Full time wage 1,057 for men and 899 for women
  (15 gap) or 158 per week
• Total weekly earnings 929 men and 616 for women
  (34 gap) or 313 per week
• Gap varies across industries

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Planning and Future Retirees

• Women are disadvantaged through lower life time
  earnings
• Cannot invest as much or as effectively
• However this is compounded by the low levels of
  investment and retirement planning traditionally
  and currently being undertaken by women
• Need better incentives to improve planning

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Conclusion

• Women in retirement now and coming into
  retirement are clearly disadvantaged by a
  combination of factors, many of which originate
  from past policies
• Problems are likely to persist unless women place
  greater emphasis on forward planning and
  investment
• Needs to be a change in attitude and behaviour
  towards retirement planning