“What advice for the future would you give a woman currently middle- aged?” That’s a question I asked of Vanessa Calderón-Rosado, a researcher at The National Center on Women and Aging.
“Take care of your health,” she answered. “Exercise and adopt a healthy diet. If you are working, save for retirement. The bottom line is you have to make it a priority.”
The Center, located at Brandeis University in Waltham, focuses on three issues: economic security, health, and caregiving. Not surprisingly, the three turn out to be intimately related, as Vanessa’s answer to my question suggests.
Through research, policy analysis, and community education, six staff members, with cooperation from some thirty organizations, work to promote the well-being of women as they age.
Another researcher, Arnaa Alcon, answered questions about building financial security. “If you haven’t started yet, start,” she advised. “Take whatever longevity expectations you have and add ten years. It’s better to overestimate. Get some help, hire a good financial planner.”
Katherine Burnes added, “Attitude is everything.” Explaining this axiom, she said, “So much negativity starts creeping in, it’s important to keep everything in perspective.” That’s how she sees the challenges of later life for women.
As Vanessa summarizes it, older women’s finances are often precarious because their employment history does not provide enough support. Typically, they have worked at lower salaries than men so that, when they retire, Social Security payments are low. Often, too, women have worked only part-time and may have taken years working without pay at home to care for their children.
When you add to these factors the inexperience with money matters that many women acknowledge, then the challenges become even greater. As one woman, quoted in a Center report, says, “I’m not that knowledgeable in financial things, situations. I’m not even good at math.”
Another, looking back, says, “When you are young, you think day to day. You get around forty and you think, ‘Oh my God!’ Women don’t have the skills or don’t think they do.”
The center staff sees long-term care as a vital part of the financial situation, especially for women. According to the director, Phyllis Mutschler: “Long-term care needs hit women twice, first in providing care for parents and other older loved ones, and then later in life when women may need long-term care themselves.”
Valuable testimony about the three issues of finances, health care, and caregiving emerges from a detailed study of some seventy women over fifty who belong to labor unions. Researchers found that “caregiving plays a major role in the lives of older working women – enriching their lives, yet depleting their financial, physical, and emotional resources.”
One woman told surveyors: “I lived a three-and-a-half hour drive from my mother. She refused to move to my home. I went to her place after work and returned at 1:00 am. Often I’d receive a call during the week and I’d have to leave work. This went on for two years or more.”
On the subject of retirement income: “Most women respond that paying for necessities is a major reason that they are unable to save more for retirement.” As one individual said, “I’ve got an 11 year old, and it seems between my 11 year old and my credit cards, I’m just blown away.”
About financial planning another women complained, “I think that the tone of what’s written in the media . . . about financial planning makes it sound as if it belongs to the upper 10 percent and not us lower 90 percent.”
One edition of the Center’s newsletter focuses directly on finding a financial planner. The wrong way to do it emerges clearly, merely relying on recommendations of relatives or friends without checking the planner’s past performance.
A 64-year old divorced woman named Judith is highlighted as an example of good planning. During the 34 years when she was married, “I had let my husband do the bills and I just signed on the dotted line as needed.” But after starting with an individual retirement account, Judith found her way around several other types of investments. Eventually, she took a seven-week seminar and wrote a financial plan for herself. Sticking to that plan has proven valuable for her and she has actually enjoyed doing it.
She now gives this advice, “I urge young women not to fall into the trap I fell into. I was of the old school. You marry, you stop teaching school, you have babies, and you let your husband take care of all the financial matters – while you manage the household, entertain the guests, and do lots of volunteering.”
Subscriptions to the Center’s “Women and Aging Letter” are available at five dollars for six issues or nine dollars for ten. You can call (800) 929-1995 for information. An informative web site is located at www.brandeis.edu/heller/national/ind.html.
Richard Griffin