Financial Realities of Older Women - the hands the rocked the cradle

From the ILC Website -


"In every society throughout the world it is typically a woman’s job to cook the food, raise the children, and care for their aging parents. Women are the caregivers and housekeepers for their working spouses. The sad truth is that these contributions to society are not given a monetary value.

Our publication “Unjust Desserts: the Financial Realities of Older Women,” a joint project with the AARP
Foundation, discusses the fact that women over 65 are twice as likely to be poor as men over 65.

“Medical and economic advances as well as social programs have solved many problems, but the poverty of older women has not lessened,” Robert N. Butler, M.D., president and CEO of the ILC-USA, said. “They make up a full 70 percent of all older people who are poor.”Women are far more likely than men to outlive their retirement incomes because of several factors, including:

•they are more likely to leave their career to work in unpaid caregiving roles

•women still earn significantly less than men, leading to less retirement savings

•women live longer than men

•many pensions decrease in value or are eliminated entirely when the husband dies

•a divorced woman must have been married at least 10 years to be eligible for her former husband’s social security benefits

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