“This is a sponsored post for SheSpeaks/Prudential.”
I admire and look up to my mother. When I turned 8, my mom became a single mom, working full-time, raising my two younger siblings and me on a teacher’s salary. Financially I knew things were tight and she made it work to get us by. She taught me so much about being financially responsible and planning for the future. My mom taught me how important it is to have savings, a retirement account, and life insurance. Now that I have a family of my own, I try to take some responsibilities of our finances. Along with budgeting and other financial basics, I am trying to build my kids savings accounts, save money, and prepare for our future.
Women have so many responsibilities at home and in the workplace, but statistics show that women are falling behind when it comes to taking charge of finances. On average women have 30% lower retirement balances than men(1), and 44% of women have no life insurance. Even among the ones that do own life insurance, most are underinsured.(2) Divorce has also become more prevalent, and more women are choosing to remain single.(3)
Prudential wants to help people own their future. The Financial Experience Study by Prudential is a research study that has shown some of the financial challenges that women face. Women care about their financial security but can struggle understanding financial service jargon and leave out important parts of long-term financial planning.
There were four significant and eye-opening gaps that Prudential found with women and their finances.
1) Wage and Income Gap: The average woman working full-time earns 79% of the income earned by her male counterpart.(4) This is because of many issues – lower likelihood to negotiate salaries, time out of the workforce, differences in pay.
The wage gap not only impacts women’s 401K balances over their lifetime but it also impacts their social security payments. Predictably women’s social security benefits are 27% lower than that of their male counterparts.(5)
2) Investment Gap: Women don’t invest to the same degree as men.(6) Women’s discomfort with investing comes at a high cost for them: They are apt to delay investing, invest more in lower risk, lower return investments and are more likely to run out of money in retirement.
3) Women Are Living Longer and Living Alone: Women outlive men by an average of 5-6 years.(7) 3 Are they prepared financially for these years?
4) Time Gap: On average, women in the U.S. spend 28 hours per week on household chores – 65 percent more than the average for men.(8) That is uncompensated work and it does not figure into women’s financial planning. Prudential has created a tool called the “Value of all you do” that lets you very quickly quantify the value of all the household chores you do on a daily basis. What you would need to pay someone to do those for you.
I was shocked that there was such an investment gap between men and women. Looking at my finances, I know that I fall into that gap. I am more nervous to invest my money and don’t always know where to put it. The time gap numbers and statistics also surprised me. I know I spend more time at home than my husband cleaning and taking care of the kids. The number 28 hours a week and 65% more than men are so crazy. I love Prudential’s “Value of all you do” tool. It is so validating to see what the value is of what I do every day as a stay at home mom.
I feel like I am at a pretty good place in my financial journey, but I have some work to do. My husband and I have a savings account and also really great life insurance. Along with building our kids savings accounts, we are working towards buying a house. I also really want to learn more about investments and the financial jargon that goes along with it.
My family also loves to travel once a year and make memories as a family. We have a savings account just for our trip to Destin, Florida at the end of every summer. My brother is also getting married this summer, so we are saving for those extra travel expenses. It makes the trip something we look forward to when we have planned and saved financially for it. Then we can go and enjoy our time together as a family.
I am so grateful that Prudential is opening up more financial discussions to get women more involved in their finances. Even though I have a pretty good handle on savings accounts and budgeting, I know I have work to do. I am going get a handle on our investments so that our money can work for us and we can get a higher return.
As women, we should and can take control of our finances! Go to Prudential to learn more how you can be an active participant with your money and investments.
Sources:
- Prudential Retirement analysis reflecting defined contribution plan balances of Prudential record-kept plans as of December 31, 2015.
- LIMRA study, Life Insurance Ownership in Focus, U.S. Person-Level Trends: 2016.
- Cruz, Julisa, “Marriage: More Than a Century of Change” (FP13-13), National Center for Family & Marriage, 2013,)
- U.S. Census Bureau, Historical Income Tables Table P-40: Women’s Earnings as a Percentage of Men’s Earnings by Race and Hispanic Origin, 2016.
- Social Security Administration, Fast Facts and Figures About Social Security, 2016.
- http://fortune.com/2016/05/11/sallie-krawcheck-ellevest-launch;
- Prudential Retirement analysis; National Center for Health Statistics, Health, United States, 2015: With Special Feature on Racial and Ethnic Health Disparities. Hyattsville, MD. 2016.
- Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, October 2016, http://stats.oecd.org/index.aspx?queryid=54757.
About Megan
Very important points in this post. Save, save, save.
you never know when you wont be able to work again,,i was working full time as a office nurse when at age 43 I had a brain anersym that burst,,totally changed my life an within two years I was on Disability,,less than half of my regular income ,,luckily when younger I had been very frugal and had paid off most of our bills so it wasn’t too bad for us financially but it sure could have been
Companies like this are so important! I love all that they have to offer.
Women oftentimes forget the impact the loss of their ability to ork would have on the family and most women are under insured. My Aunt got cancer and luckily she had saved and saved and she didnt nd up going to a sub standard care hospice. I was glad she thought ahead.
This is great infomration! I’m lucky that my husband is older and knows a lot about financial security and was well on his way when we married.
Learn as much as you can so you can make wise decisions.
Very great info. This is a great post. Thanks so much for this read…
This is very informative and useful. I like that they have more options and discussions about women’s finances.
My parents bought their house with money they saved. (this was 50 years ago). But their lessons stayed with me.
This is a wonderful post and very interesting. I am glad you shared!
Be careful with your money and save much.
Prudential offers great financial services.