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Going forward would say this issue largely will affect Boomers, maybe their parents and generation behind.
Younger women today know (or should) the score. Hence they've long out numbered men in attaining for year degrees. Are now making up substantial numbers in professions (medicine, law, politics, etc....), and otherwise.
What is dragging females down as a cohort are the numbers who are single mothers.
Largest influence of poverty in USA is children, especially for single parents (usually mothers). Am going to set aside this whole new trend of gay single men having children (surrogates or whatever), because they are just that, men, and often white males from higher income brackets.
Children consume great amount of resources (time, money, etc...), that for women could be directed elsewhere. At end of day American society as a whole does not fully compensate women (or families for that matter) for their investment in having children. To wit you see what has been happening for decades, declining birth rates, especially among better educated females and or those from higher end of socio-economic scale.
As noted several times in this thread basically only thing US offers women some compensation for their baby making and rearing is Social Security. And that largely rewards women who married well.
Another thing, everyone knows what's coming down the pike, but society and government as a whole largely don't want to be bothered.
As huge wave of boomers move through retirement into their senior years American society is going to be faced with something it has never previously; large numbers of single (never married, unmarried, widowed, etc....) persons who will be on their own. When you over lay retirement savings and other assets over this cohort, things don't look very good for large numbers.
Linked NYT article is not exactly news, and follows a long series of such pieces that have come out over past decade or so. Large part of those facing financial insecurity in retirement/old age will be single females. Again divorced, widowed, never married....
Another thing, everyone knows what's coming down the pike, but society and government as a whole largely don't want to be bothered.
As huge wave of boomers move through retirement into their senior years American society is going to be faced with something it has never previously; large numbers of single (never married, unmarried, widowed, etc....) persons who will be on their own. When you over lay retirement savings and other assets over this cohort, things don't look very good for large numbers.
Linked NYT article is not exactly news, and follows a long series of such pieces that have come out over past decade or so. Large part of those facing financial insecurity in retirement/old age will be single females. Again divorced, widowed, never married....
Good posts (these last two).
Re: on their own - we are already at 28% of households that consist of only one person (i.e adults living alone). According to the article below, 45% of women 75 and over live alone.
The savings / assets issue folds into this, but the big challenge is going to be caring for all these people who will become increasingly less able to maintain their independence as they age. Those with money will be able to afford quality care, assuming there are enough members of the younger population available to even work those caretaker jobs.
On the one hand, the mistake women are allegedly making is not striving for high-level career type jobs that earn the big bucks. On the other hand, many in society are again furiously waxing nostalgic and yearning for the days that you could get by on one income (presumably, the man's). We can't win.
If you actually read the article in the OP, the main issues they address are the childbearing penalty and late in life divorce when there is little chance for recovery.
I agree that Social Security is still set up to favor the model of working husband / SAH wife that remain married forever. It's not so much the accumulation along the way (which is fairly applied to everyone's salaries pretty much equally), though that is certainly a factor when women are in lower paid jobs, it is in the payout phase that it's more significant. I don't recall the exact rules, but a spouse who never worked but is still married to someone who did has their benefit based on the spouse's earnings record, even after the spouse dies, which often amounts to more than the benefit for someone who worked a low-wage job their whole life but never married. So the 1-high income earner/SAH spouse model could get more back in retirement than a couple whose combined income was the same as the high earner. Or someone who never worked ends up with more of a benefit than someone who worked a lower paying job over the years. I'd like to see some recognition of child-care years, but I also think we need to update that paradigm.
I also hear a lot these days about promoting the trades rather than shoehorning everyone into college. I don't disagree, but those are still largely boys' clubs and not just because girls aren't interested in the work itself. It's not always a welcoming environment for women. Let's hope that culture evolves.
It all comes down to biology really. A female's peak reproductive years (20's through 30's) coincide when both young men and women are starting out in their careers. Building a base that will carry them into their peak earning years (usually 40's though early 60's).
Conscious or not a young woman has decisions to make. She can delay marriage and or having babies until later in life, but then there isn't any guarantee one or both will happen.
Despite all advances such as IVF and so forth, female fertility in USA as in most of developed nations has remained remarkably where nature has seemed it should be. Worse too many young women swallow the hole birth control and be stopped at anytime, and they will get pregnant at once bull. It often doesn't happen, then a woman faces IVF besides being expensive, and stressful, doesn't always work.
On other end of things, women, especially young ones and or those who once were (think boomers) do what society told them was possible. They delayed marriage and having children because living their Mary Tyler Moore dreams think they can have it all career wise.
Life is what happens while you're busy doing other things, and for good number of women time passes. While they are busy building up career or whatever they age out of their 20's and even 30's. Before they know it they are middle aged single women. There's nothing wrong in that, but it does mean if not done already it's time to seriously think about financial planning for retirement/old age.
This is cute and all. However, the reality is that most men in America are not financially secure. This leaves the dependent wife in dire straits.
It is not just about financial security either.
Now that I am an old man, I see around me a lot of examples of men, younger than I am, who have ruined their health.
I am seeing a lot of men my age and younger who have been dying from diseases that were completely preventable. But for decades they refused to control their diet or how much they drink.
40 years ago I was encouraged to select a marketable major in college, and to make sure I selected a career where I could give myself nice things and a good life. (Making $$$$).
My parents gave me that advice and emphasized it. I took that advice and ran with it.
Continuing education beyond a college degree became important to grow and advance. Back to school a decade later on my employer's dime, going to B-school part-time at night and working full-time. Graduated with an advanced degree and no debt, which, IMO, is the way to do it. Lots of work, but it was worth it!
If married, pensions usually offer benefits to a widow that will not pass down to any other familial relationship. Realizing that you did not and do not need the money; but, he paid into a system and never got anything out. So, that was money left on the table.
I knew a guy who had a great career and a pension. He was divorced for quite a while and had a live in girlfriend. He was in Hawaii with his son in law and felt really ill. They cut the trip short. He was diagnosed with liver cancer. He tried to marry his girlfriend in the hospital (he did); but, he didn't realize that he needed to be married to her for 9 months in order for her to get his pension (he could have retired 3 years prior (at 56)). The guy only had 3 weeks (all in the hospital).
He could have done better planning; but, oh well as it sounds like the rest of his assets may benefit the next generation.
Note that marrying a foreign national would have jeopardized my chance, after two decades of "processing", to ultimately become a US citizen and continue living/working in the US (my immigration case was based upon social unrest and dissolution of my former home country, and lack of my substantial connection with any country other than the US. Had I married him, I would have acquired a substantial connection with two countries where he was a dual citizen, but neither of them was the US). In that case, he would have truly had to support me (for many years prior to retirement) because at that point, I could not work in my profession in any country other than the US (the profession has a highly regulated licensing in every country, and requires many years in local training system, which years I have already done in the US - plus there would have been a language barrier, my work was too complex to be performed in an environment where I half-speak the language :-). I would have ended up losing incomparably more in income over the years, and in qualification for the US social security, than I would have received from his pension. Trading far more money that I could (and did) generate for being able to eventually maybe get his pension (where nobody could have predicted that he would die so early, or that I would even outlive him) would have been idiotic. Needless to say, I would have also been miserable - I still really wanted to work in my 40s, I was finally professionally at my peak.
Then why does our society still thinks it's a good idea for women to be 100% dependent on a husband?
Haven't seen "society" to think this.
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