While women place high importance on planning for retirement and their family’s future, they apparently are facing gaps preventing them from reaching their goals, new research shows.
According to Lincoln Financial’s “Love and Responsibility Survey,” large majorities of women say they are prioritizing planning for their retirement (90%) and their family’s future (84%), yet more than 7 in 10 believe they are not doing a very good job with either. In fact, 70% of women are worried they will run out of money in retirement – and among this group, only one in five say they have a plan in place to manage this concern.
Other barriers cited by women to the financial planning process include:
- Current expenses make it hard to set aside money for the future (58%)
- Lack of time for financial planning (44%)
- Feeling less educated about retirement planning (52%) and personal financial planning (55%) than they should be
Knowledge Gap
The study also shows that women’s understanding of certain financial products is lower than men’s in specific areas. According to the findings, women were more likely to acknowledge knowing very little or nothing about annuities (61% versus 45% men) and long-term care (50% versus 41% men).
Not surprisingly, men and women also diverge when it comes to each other’s top sources for financial information. Women rank their significant other or spouse (42%) as their number one source, but men say that financial professionals are their top source (37%). Both women and men prefer not to discuss finances with others, but 72% of respondents said they are open to working with a financial advisor to help them plan for the future.
The results are based on an online survey conducted by Whitman Insight Strategies on behalf of Lincoln Financial Group among 2,393 Americans ages 18 and over from June 28 to July 3, 2018.
