7 ways men and women see retirement differently

We already know most men are from Mars and women are from Venus.  John Gray’s book told us that and in doing so offered up many suggestions to improve relationships between men and women through various communication styles and responding to the hard-wired general biases of the opposite sex.  Maybe surprisingly then, men and women differed very little in their responses to a recent study about the subject of retirement and money.  Here are seven ways the two genders see retirement differently from Sun Life Financial’s Understanding Unretirement here.

Men are more likely to be satisfied with their retirement savings

We asked respondents how satisfied they are, and 33% said either “very satisfied” or “somewhat satisfied.” Not a bad number, given the capital market volatility we’ve seen in recent years. Men appear in better shape, however, with 38% saying they were “very” or “somewhat” satisfied. Among women, the total is 29%. Almost half of women (47%) are “very dissatisfied” or “somewhat dissatisfied” with their savings. By comparison, just 36% of men said the same.

More than a third of women expect to be working part-time at 66

While men and women expect to work past 65 in roughly equal numbers, women are more likely to be planning on part-time work while men are more likely to keep working full-time. We asked respondents what they thought they’d be doing at 66; 34% of women said “working part-time” (versus 29% of men) and 31% of men said “working full-time” (versus 21% of women).

Men are much more likely to work past 65 by choice

Among those who expect to be working at 66, 42% of men said they’ll do so “because they want to” (versus 31% of women). Almost seven in 10 women expect to be working at 66 “because they need to.”

More men pay themselves first

It’s one of the principles of personal finance — put a sum of money aside in savings each month before paying your living expenses and making discretionary purchases. About three in 10 (29%) men said they do it every month, while 23% of women said the same. One third of men and women do it sometimes.  And 41% of women said they never do it (versus 34% of men).

Saving for retirement is a top priority among many more men

We asked respondents to name their top financial priority. Among men, 27% said it was “saving for retirement.” Just 19% of women said the same.  In both cases, the highest percentage said their No. 1 priority is to “pay down personal loan(s) or other debt(s).”

Men are more likely to be confident about their understanding of financial matters

Well over half (56%) of men answered yes to our question: “Do you feel you have the financial knowledge to be able to make a plan for your retirement?”  Among women, 48% said yes.

Yet men are less likely to worry about dying in debt

Surprisingly, 27% of Canadians said “no, it does not matter if I die in debt.” The gender split adds to our understanding: 35% of men aren’t worried about debt in the afterlife, while just 20% of women said the same.

That last item aside, it’s hard to look at these numbers and not feel it supports an argument that too many Canadian women are at a disadvantage economically (relative to men at least).

You can read this article and others in Sun Life Financial’s Understanding Unretirement here.

This article was published with permission and thanks to Kevin Press, author of Today’s economy blog and fans of My Own Advisor, BrighterLIfe.ca.