Work Life: Poll Paints Grim Retirement Picture for Women

By Margarita Bauza, Detroit Free Press

May 5, 2005

Forget about asking for slippers, flowers or that lip-plumping Botox injection you wanted.

This Mother's Day, ask for a copy of "Personal Finance for Dummies" (For Dummies, $21.99) or a little cash so you can increase your 401(k) contributions. Avoid becoming a part of the so-called bag-lady generation.

That's what the Washington-based Heinz Family Philanthropies (of Teresa Heinz Kerry fame) wants women to know as they approach Mother's Day and eventual retirement.

"Ask your kids for a pension," says Jeffrey Lewis, president of the Heinz Family Philanthropies.

Lewis, speaking about a national survey expected to be released today on the status of women approaching retirement, says women, particularly minority women, are facing "financial prison" when they retire.

"It's horrific," he says, calling the situation a crisis. "Many women of color will never be able to retire."

More than half of women surveyed say they expect to have to work well past retirement age, have nothing saved and are worried about poverty, according to the National Women's 2005 Retirement Survey.

More than 57 percent of Hispanic and 44 percent of African-American women expect to work past retirement age.

The survey, conducted by pollsters American Viewpoint and Harrison & Goldberg, is based on interviews with 1,700 adults and has a margin of error of plus or minus 2.4 percentage points.

The costs of caring for aging parents, grandparents, adult children and grandchildren worsen women's ability to retire, particularly minority women, the survey found.

African-American women are more than twice as likely as white women to cite "financial responsibility for adult children or grandchildren" as a reason for not saving for retirement, it said.

Hispanic women are also twice as likely as white women to be short of retirement investments because they are helping to support their elderly parents.

Of the Hispanic women helping to support their parents, 60 percent report spending between $100 and $1,000 each month on their parents' basic expenses, including food, gas, rent, drug and medical bills.

Jorge Luis Chinea, director of Wayne State University 's Center for Chicano/Boricua Studies, supports this theory but says there are other factors that aggravate the problem.

Educational barriers, how long Hispanic people have lived in the United States and how familiar they are with financial planning are important things to consider when looking at women's ability to plan for retirement.

The degree to which Latinos are educated, what job opportunities they have and to what extent they can contribute to 401(k) plans and other savings plans matter, too.

"Language barriers apply," Chinea says, explaining that English language materials that explain retirement don't have the same appeal as material printed in Spanish.

"More traditional Hispanic women are less familiar with savings programs in the U.S. or are less familiar with jargon and terminology. Bilingual information is critical.

"If you come from a Hispanic household where machismo relations tend to prevail, (women) default to their husbands to put the savings in order. They are more likely than not to depend on the man to take care of things."

One of the survey's goals is to identify the retirement savings issues facing women, particularly women of color, Lewis says.

The data will be used to develop ways to educate women about their financial futures.

Contact MARGARITA BAUZA at 313-222-6823 or bauza@freepress.com.