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Financial Concerns and the Economy Weigh on Women Age 50+ More Than Men
AARP survey finds older women worry about saving for retirement, paying for health care and who will care for them as they age
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Key takeaways:
- More than half of women 50-plus fear their money won’t sustain them in retirement.
- Women ages 50 to 64 have made tough choices to pay for health care.
- The strain of caregiving has long-term financial consequences.
Fears about the economy and personal finances are bubbling to the surface for women age 50 and older, even though they feel good about time spent with family and friends and on hobbies they enjoy. Their concerns are especially acute when it comes to paying for health care, covering emergencies, and living comfortably in retirement, a new AARP survey finds.
The survey is part of She’s the Difference, AARP’s research series gauging the perspectives of older women. Women 50-plus make up a large share of registered voters, turn out to the polls at a high rate and are often a key swing voting bloc in elections. That pattern is likely to repeat in this year’s elections.
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A bipartisan pair of pollsters, Echelon Insights and GBAO Strategies, surveyed nearly 2,600 voters in December age 50 and over to collect information about their feelings on the economy and their finances.
“When kitchen table costs are rising along with retirement insecurity, those concerns don’t stay at home,” said Nancy LeaMond, AARP’s chief advocacy and engagement officer, in a statement. “They shape how older women voters think about the upcoming elections.”
One group of women are especially leery about the economy and their financial security: those ages 50 to 64. Women 50-plus generally voice more concerns about their financial stability and their outlook for the year ahead than men in the same age group do.
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Kristen Soltis Anderson, a founding partner of Echelon Insights, was struck by how immediate economic worries feed into long-term economic insecurity. “Cost of living is high, people are struggling to make ends meet,” she says. “That means people don’t have the ability to save and prepare for the future.”
Women tend to sacrifice more of their health and wealth for caregiving than men do, clouding their long-term financial picture. That holds true for women on the younger end of the spectrum who are not yet eligible for Medicare or are still figuring out how to stretch their money into retirement.
Retirement is a question mark
Older women are not optimistic when it comes to the economy and their personal finances, although these perspectives vary somewhat by political affiliation. For example, half of women voters age 50 and older expect the economy to get worse over the next year. But this feeling is much stronger for Democratic and Democratic-leaning women, with 79 percent of those respondents expecting it to decline, compared with only 16 percent of Republican and Republican-leaning women. Just over half of older women feel less secure about their finances than they did a year ago, while only 41 percent feel somewhat or very confident that they will be better off financially a year from now.
Men, in contrast, are more relaxed about the state of their finances. A third of men 50 and older say they are less secure about their finances than a year ago, while 56 percent are confident their financial picture will be brighter in a year.
Having enough money for retirement is a big concern for older women.
More than half the women surveyed are not confident, or are at least unsure, about whether their money will last long-term. This fear is significant for women 50 to 64: Two-thirds say they are not confident or are unsure about whether they will have enough money in retirement, compared with half of women 65 and older who say the same.
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Even in the short term, finances are tight: More than 4 in 10 women 50-plus could not cover a $400 emergency expense using the money in their bank accounts alone. They would need to borrow or perhaps tap a retirement account to make up the difference.
Women worry that a struggling economy, the rising cost of living and whether Social Security checks will cover their expenses could put a comfortable retirement out of reach.
More than 8 in 10 older women expect Social Security to be one portion of their income in their 60s; for nearly 30 percent of older women, it will be their only source of income.
Paying for health care trumps other everyday expenses
Stress over health care expenses and cost of living also emerged as top concerns weighing on women’s minds. In fact, women 50-plus say cost of living is the biggest issue facing the country.
Only 45 percent of women ages 50 to 64 strongly or somewhat agree that they can afford to pay for their health care expenses. They are less concerned about other kinds of spending. For example, about two-thirds of women 50 to 64 surveyed feel good about their housing costs and everyday living expenses such as groceries and utilities.
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Once again, women 65 and older and men are more confident in these areas. Still, more than a quarter of Medicare-eligible women are not certain that they can afford to pay for health care, while one in five Medicare-eligible men feel the same.
Women ages 50 to 64 are more likely than women age 65 and older, and older men, to have made tough decisions about their health, whether that meant forgoing medical care, skipping medication or incurring debt. For example, 38 percent of women 50 to 64 skipped medical care because it was too expensive. Only 17 percent of women eligible for Medicare, 22 percent of men 50 to 64, and 13 percent of men eligible for Medicare reported doing the same.
Caregiving has consequences for the future
Older women wonder what the coming years have in store. “They are unable to prepare for the long term as they try to keep their heads above water in the short term,” says Anderson.
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This demographic is more likely than men to provide caregiving for adult loved ones without pay. More specifically, 37 percent of women 50 to 64, and 42 percent of women 65-plus, have provided this kind of care to loved ones in the past, compared with about a quarter of men in both age groups who say the same. Women are also twice as likely as men to jeopardize their own health to prioritize that of a loved one.
Caregiving has another financial toll. Nearly 40 percent of women 50-plus provide financial support to adult children either all or some of the time.
Meanwhile, many older women question who in their lives will take care of them as they age and whether they will be able to remain in their homes. Only 45 percent of women surveyed have people they feel are prepared to help them with tasks such as bathing, chores and managing finances. Fifteen percent have no one at all.
Women ages 50 to 64 in particular “are giving a lot to others and sacrificing a lot themselves,” Anderson says. Women 65-plus feel less pressed because they can rely on Medicare for their health care, are less likely to have adult children depending on them and are less likely to be caregiving.
“Women in this 50 to 64 group are trying to hold it together for their families,” Anderson says.
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