A personal tragedy...

After experiencing a personal tragedy this weekend involving an elderly relative and cash flow, I've decided to remind all the ladies about these stats and encourage all women to make their own money and ensure their financial future - right into old age and retirement. I posted this a while ago, but given the situation at the moment, thought I’d post it again:

I often get asked why I decided to start my own business. Well, apart from the fact that husband got retrenched a couple of years ago that really knocked the wind out of our sales (and we’re still haven’t recovered from that), the statistics below are quite frightening and is part of my motivation in starting my own business. And next month we’re celebrating Woman’s Day (Yay!) and I thought these statistics were pretty pertinent to that as well. I’m quoting from Kim Kiyosaki’s book, Rich Woman – A Book on Investing for Women (pg 58 – 59).

“The statistics about women and money are very startling. The following are U.S. statistics, yet I find for other countries throughout the world these statistics are very similar or are trending in the same direction.
In the U.S.:

• 47% of women over the age of 50 are single. (This means they are financially responsible for themselves.)
  Women’s retirement income is less than that of men because a woman is away from the work force an average of 14.7 years as compared to 1.6 years for men. (Women are typically the primary caretaker of the home.) This, along with lower salaries, adds up to retirement benefits that are only about ¼ of those of men. (National Center for Women and Retirement Research – NCWRR)
• 50% of marriages end in divorce. (And who typically ends up with the children? The woman. So now she is solely financially responsible for herself – and her children. And what is the #1 subject couples fight about? Money.)
• In the first year after a divorce a woman’s standard of living drops an average of 73%.
• As of 2000, women are expected to live an average of 7 to 10 years longer than men, (Ann Letteersee June 12, 2000), which means they must provide for those extra years. However, married baby boomer women can expect to outlive their husbands by 15 to 20 years on average.
• The average female born between 1948 and 1964 may likely remain in the workforce until at least 74 years of age due to inadequate financial savings and pension coverage. (National Center for Women and Retirement Research, 1996)
• Of the elderly living in poverty: 3 out of 4 are women (Morningstar Fund Investor) and 80% of the women were not poor when their husbands were alive.
• Approximately 7 out of 10 women will at some time live in poverty.

What are these statistics telling us? They tell us that more and more women, especially as they become older, are not educated or prepared to take care of themselves financially. We’ve spent our entire lives taking care of our families, but have no ability to care for ourselves in this vital way. We are either depending upon someone else to do it for us – a husband or partner, a boss, a family member, or the government. Or we just figure that it will all work out. The fairy tales we grew up with were just that.

Three final statistics to consider:

• 90% of all women will have sole responsibility for their finances within their lifetimes … yet 79% of all women have not planned for this.
• 58% of female baby boomers have less than $10 000 in retirement.
• Only 20% of baby boomer women will be financially secure in their retirement (Ms. Magazine, 2002).

With all of the above, you can see why I wanted to and did start my own business.

Good luck to all the women out there! Be rich, be healthy and be wise.

Regards,

M.