Women worry about retirement, a lot more than men.  Eighty-three percent of women surveyed in 2007 by The Hartford and the MIT AgeLab worry that they will not be able to keep up with inflation in retirement, compared to 69 percent of men.  They worry, too, about declining health and their inability to afford adequate healthcare.  The number of women who are concerned about their ability to manage their nest egg in retirement is nearly double that of men.

Women may be worriers by nature, but in this case, they have good reason to be anxious.  All else equal, women’s longer life expectancies mean that they need to set aside more for their retirement.  But unfortunately all else is not equal. Because women’s working lives are so often interrupted to give birth or to care for children and the elderly, they have less opportunity than working men to save through workplace sponsored retirement plans.  For the same reasons, their Social Security benefits are less.  What they do manage to set aside for the final decades of their lives is often invested less aggressively than is necessary for adequate growth of their resources.  They are trapped between their fear of living too long and their female reluctance to take risk.

But there is one aspect of retirement that has women less anxious than their male counterparts:  namely, the question of what they will do when they are no longer in the workplace.  We’ve all heard stories about the newly retired husband who drives his wife crazy by deciding to alphabetize the soup cans, when it’s too rainy to play golf.  As one woman declared after two weeks of her husband’s retirement:  “I may have married for better or worse, but NOT for lunch!”

It’s said that a woman’s work is never done, and such is true even when she is finished with her career or job.  Her whole life has been a balancing act that would impress even a professional juggler.  The space left vacant by leaving paid work is quickly filled by volunteerism, involvement with her social and/or faith community, new hobbies or interests, or those resumed now that she has more time.  Figuring out what to do is simply NOT on her to-do list.

As financial planners help women to prepare for retirement, they need to make more of women’s ability to remain active and involved in retirement.  So often, retirement “success” is premised on what an individual has – specifically in dollar-denominated terms — as opposed to what he or she can do.   We often hear in the media that it now takes $1 million, $2 million, $5 million to retire.  What we don’t hear about is the value of other resources – our interests, abilities, and interests  — to help us succeed in the last third of our lives.

All of us – women and men alike – are having to redefine retirement as a result of the recent financial meltdown of financial assets, and our national failure to control our debt and make savings as important a priority as consumption.  Many are reconciling themselves to having to work far longer than they anticipated.  Is it possible that women may be better positioned to make a virtue of this necessity?  Namely, can they continue to earn income in their retirement years by using the outside interests and involvements that they have cultivated all their lives?  Because these activities are enjoyed by women, they may be less stressful, and exact a lower physical toll than work purely for pay, which means they can be productively pursued well into their seventies, even eighties.

I recently attended a presentation by an actuarial consultant on how Americans view retirement.   In a pause between all the statistics, charts, and tables, she made one simple, number-free observation that stood out from all the rest.  “There are two portfolios to manage in retirement,” she said.  “One consists of your financial assets, the other is made up of your activities.”

Taking that observation one step further, I would suggest that retirement wealth might be considered the sum of the two portfolios.  With that in mind, it’s possible that women may not be as poorly prepared for retirement as they fear.

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