Women's retirement prospects increasingly grim: study

Men work longer, earning more but die younger and there will even be pension problems for them, which means, that unless this pension issue is sorted out there will be big problems for us women as the bulk of us head into retirement. Adding to the low savings and income issue is the large number of very obese among us who will just not be able to care for themselves in old age, much less work. Some of us have taken care of parents instead of children and with none of our own to care for us we must look out for our own health and demand better healthcare now, Before we are destitute.

I realize I"m not the person to depend on. Get married and stay married. The man is the one who makes the money in the house, whether I, as a woman, likes it or not.
We can't rely on an already overburdened health care system. That ship has sailed. We must go back to the days of relying on our family, or be very nice to your friends. I have a great family.

As a married women with 2 kids, I have been actively looking at and planning my retirement funding since very young (in mid-20's). Women, i encourage you to be active participants in your family retirement planning, even if you are not working. Save early for the future. My husband and I save for our RSP's through our employers' payroll - so pre-tax and i am confident that we will retire comfortably - but that is because we actively watch where things are going, how our funds are doing etc. It surprises me how many people put $ in an RSP and don't bother to see if they are making any returns. Definitely there will be tough years like '08 where the market falls a lot, but if you held on and didn't bail, the reward was there in '09 to recoup and do even better.

Also, I plan on taking advantage of the new TFSA's - they are a really good hedge against future RSP withdrawls being taxed at higher rates than expected. I will be saving in TFSA's as soon as i can swing the after tax savings. We all need to remember that RSP's are taxable once we withdrawl them and there is no guarantee that today's tax rates will hold - we might be in for a big surprise.

I may have to stop work earlier than planned (62) due to health, my parent's health or layoff, but i am going to do whatever i can to put my family in a good position now so that we can absorb life's inevitable surprises that may come. I read a ton on financial planning and it is a bit of a hobbey of mine. As many experts have said, no one will care as much about your retirement as you. And, my husband isn't that interested in all the details, i keep assuring him that i will make sure he and i do well in retirement, i do the worrying/planning for both of us.

This image is so gloomy especially for someone in my circumstances. I'm a divorced (since very long time) 2 young children . Was not able to work because of my little kids and now , at 54 yrs old just starting to look for a job. What are my chances? I do not have any family other than my still young kids( 10 and 12 yrs old). What can I do? I can not sleep at night .

I am 59 now and retired in February due to health issues and a new much younger boss that I couldn't connect with. I had worked for the same company for 37 years and will get my pension just slightly reduced. It was not worth it in terms of my mental health for the difference in the pension to stick it out. I knew I wanted to continue to interact with people, keep busy and do something to get some excersize when I retired. 4 years ago I started my own little business helping seniors, people with disabilitiesand busy working people with their gardens. Small jobs that fall through the cracks that landscapers a lawn care maintenance people leave. I am gratefully still physically able. So this spring I have started working for myself and it has turned out perfectly. It makes up for the gap in my pension and meets the other needs I had.

Things could have been much different for me. My husband had a disa bility that would have continued to progress and require my full time care eventually. He passed away 6 years ago. This will sound terrible to some people but because of his life style (eating, drinking,smoking habits), not his disabilty, we knew he was going to pass away first,we just didn't expect it to be so soon. We both agreed that we would get as much life insurance as we could on his life including life insurance on our mortgage when he was younger. At work I was offered to up grade coverage for my spouse every so often without a medical and we took advantage of those opportunities. When he passed away, the mortgage on our house was paid off and I now have a retirement fund I can use for the future.

There retirement plan is callled ALIMONY and CHILD SUPPORT

How I am going to manage to support myself in my old age keeps me up at night. I work in tech, which is a 'young' profession and I am frightened that I won't be able to get a job after 50. I have saved hard all my life, I have never been unemployed, but it won't be enough because I am single and don't have any sort of work pension. For years we were told to invest in RRSPs and I did, and it has been a joke, with returns in the 2% range. High Canadian taxes have kept me poor. I don't own a home because I can't afford one in Toronto, which is the only place in Canada where I can find work.

Yet the Canadian government still takes a huge chunk of my earnings, and I will never see any of those funds come back to me in any way. The government has other, more important ways to spend my money, like the military, fake lakes, pointless massively expensive photo ops masquerading as political conferences, spending hundreds of millions of dollars supporting thousands of fake 'refugees' etc. I have contributed to CPP all my life, but the amount of CPP you get is a complete joke, probably because the government is paying out my pension funds to people who have never even paid into the program (see 'refugees' above). Maybe someone could have lived on it in 1960, but it is completely inadequate now.

My advice to women is to get married and stay married and work for the government. It is the only way you won't be poor in your old age if you live in this crappy country called Canada. Of course if you are a 'refugee' you will be able to live off the public purse your whole life.

eeg gregg .......a little bitter? This is a serious issue for a lot of women who have never collected child support or alimony.

Note to SMS : The refugees are not the problem. The wealthiest 20% of Canadians have 80% of the wealth. They live like kings and pharoahs while people like you toil for life to pay rent and buy food. Many immigrants do jobs at low pay that no "Canadian" could tolerate for more than a week. World 1 is a machine built by and built for the wealthy elite. The bottom half of society is the engine that provides them (the elites) with their banquet.

what I see of our nursing homes for seniors,jail looks better they pay to live there,but they have no rigths, when I see a senior has to get in his car to have a cigarette and have to drive off the property to have a simple pleasure my blood boil,heavon forbid if you have all your facality an your in a cramp room with a person with no menory,or your to sore with artheritise and you can't get dress on your own or make to the dining room, they will not serve meals in your room most of these senior are vetereins, this how Canada looks after the True Canadian ,emigrants and jailbirds have it made in Dear old Canada.come all Canadians an speak up they have taken our money to help others,and laws that is so unfair to the taxs payers of this country,I could go on but I hope you reilize it could be you nexts

Robert, Don't blame the top 20% for someone elses life choices. After all that 20% pay +90% of all taxes.

Note to Walter. You are a dreamer.

We all need to prepare first and then to care second. Life events can often overcome the best laid plans especially retirement plans made half a century in advance (ask anyone born in Eastern Europe in the early 1900's). As to Rober's point, the wealthy are only able to exploit their positions for short periods and their proclaimations of munificence are shown to be lies every time their wealth is taken away wholesale (WWII, Black death etc). If society is to advance we need to prevent the concentration of wealth in the hands of a few. A return to a tax structure and work ethic of the 1960's would do a world of good here in Canada and America. 1960's waist lines probably wouldn't hurt a few of us either.

Here we go again - blaming the wealthy. Every topic it seems on this site inevitably ends up with a few people blaming generically those in a higher income bracket. There are crooks out there to be sure, but a lot of people, the so-called rich, have worked their butts off to get there, with a lot of personal sacrifice. NOW to the topic: One of the problems is that women have traditionally trailed men in wages. Though this is changing it has accounted for major problems for women (especially single) trying to save for retirement. There is a lack of education for both men and women on retirement issues, savings etc. If this were to start early along with formal instruction in our schools on financial planning a lot of us would be better prepared. Personally, I have taken my retirement planning into my own hands, so to speak. I have stayed up many a night learning about securites and investing. Armed with this knowledge (and I have a lot more to learn) I can certainly say I feel less anxious about the future and more in control. The government is simply not going to be taking care of us in our later years. We have to start early, stop blaming others,and apply a little discipline. And yes, women AND men agitate for equal pay!

I divorced and raised my two kids myself. One is in university and the other college thank you very much. I had a job that had hours that were conducive for children in grade schools but it was a paycheque to payccheque job. Loved it but now the kids are off, it is time for me to make my pension. At 51, I am moving to a job that takes me out of the house for weeks on end but I make serious money. I plan on putting 20,000 aside each year in TFSA's, RRSP's and other vehicles that my financial planner will show me. After 10 years I will have 200,000+ and another 100,000 from my mom. I figure I can live on part of the interest and work parttime for "pin" money. I have to take care of me as my family is longlived and I am very healthy. For fun I used to tell my children that they better go to University to get a good paying job to help them pay for my nursing home or I plan on moving in with them. It was a funny joke but I don't want that to happen. Wish me luck!

obviously the men that are commenting here do not have much respect for women. As I was the bread winner in my marriage and supported him, which I ended 5 yrs ago, I have a decent nest egg ($750.000) ,that I BUILT, not him. Received No alimony or child support for my 2 boys that are with me.

Robert, Walter may be exagerating a bit but the top money makers to pay most of the taxes...

TOP 10 PERCENT pays 52.6 percent of income tax received
by the Canadian federal government

BOTTOM 90 PERCENT of society in Canada pay 47.4 percent
of all income tax received by the Canadian federal government.

Get married to a refugee that by definition would be included in the UNRWA budget (a Palestinian): it will guarantee you benefits for life, for you and your children.

I would love to retire now, at 64, but I'm a writer and have been for decades. I have no savings and don't expect to end up on the NY Times best-seller list with a Harry Potter or Twilight book. I earn a living writing and doing some part-time teaching of writing. Can I live on the $500 old age security and $300 Canada pension a month which I'll get next year? No, of course not. No one can. So I'll just have to work. There's no getting around it.

I am a stay at home mom at the moment, I plan to go back to work when the kids are both in school full time. I am already in my mid-40's and have a bit saved up in RRSP's, I fooled around too much in my 20's and never got serious about retirement until my 30's. I did pretty good until last year when my husband racked up more debt then I thought and I was about to become a stay at home mom. I took money out of my RRSP, which I won't have the chance to put back in now to pay off a good portion of that debt. I won't be able to recoup the interest and increases I would have got in that money I took out, but once I get back to work, I plan to sock away as much as possible. My husband has delusions that we are going to be just fine living off of CPP and some RRSP money, but I don't intend on sitting in the house all day because I don't have the budget to drive anywhere or even take the bus. My side of the family lives a long time, pass 100, so I have a long way to go. I see my parents who didn't have great jobs and didn't put alot of money away, when I was a kid they bought a couple of acres in Arizona they thought they would sell to retire on, now look what is going on down there. they say they can't even give the property away, I look at them struggle to survive, my mom is still working part time, but that just buys the groceries. I lay awake at night also worrying about my retirement future.