“WHAT TODAY’S WOMAN NEEDS TO KNOW: A RETIREMENT JOURNEY”

“WHAT TODAY’S WOMAN NEEDS TO KNOW: A RETIREMENT JOURNEY”

Westport, CT June 13, 2007

“What Today’s Woman Needs to Know: A Retirement Journey,” a free publication, is now available from the MetLife Mature Market Institute^®.  The booklet comes in conjunction with the institute’s latest study, "It's Not Your Mother's Retirement: The MetLife Study of Women and Generational Differences."

The booklet, produced in cooperation with the Women’s Institute for a Secure Retirement (WISER), is designed to help women prepare for retirement and addresses specific challenges women face: job switching, taking time out for family and the important consideration of when to retire.  It also helps with financial questions like how much money one will need to retire, what kinds of investments are available, protecting assets, health care costs and ways to use home equity.  Perhaps most useful, the booklet contains a Retirement Savings and Planning checklist for each decade with guidelines for women from their 20s to their 70s.

The findings from “It’s Not Your Mother’s Retirement” indicate that retirement for women will be redefined by the younger generations who expect to work longer than their mothers and to have a more active retirement with varied pursuits.  Daughters, it reports, may be more vulnerable because they will enter retirement with considerably higher levels of debt than their mothers and are expected to make a greater financial adjustment than their mothers. 

“Today’s women are leading very different lives than their mothers and all indications are that their retirement will be different as well,” said Sandra Timmermann, Ed.D., director, MetLife Mature Market Institute.  “If you think of retirement as a destination, many of our mothers were better prepared for the journey.  They had what they would need: a pension, a spousal Social Security benefit, affordable private health care insurance, in addition to Medicare, and a deed to their mortgage-free home.

“By contrast, younger women today will probably live longer than their mothers and will make the journey with less in hand.  They may carry only a 401(k) and IRA savings along with Social Security and Medicare benefits.  It’s less likely that they will have a pension and private health care coverage.  In addition, many may have a mortgage or other debt.  Our survey shows that today’s working women are twice as likely as their mothers’ generation to carry debt of $25,000 or more.”

“Women should be planning ahead and taking what we convey in this publication very seriously,” said Cindy Hounsell, J.D., president of WISER.  “It would be judicious for people to start saving in their 20s and to begin good habits like avoiding debt at a young age.  By the time a woman is in her 30s, she should have a savings plan, investments and she should be thinking about home ownership.  Anyone 40 and over should have disability and life insurance, perhaps long-term care insurance, and the beginnings of sound investments to last a lifetime.”