When you went in to business, did you think about when you will retire? During a recent ABN webinar on finance for women we asked participants at what age they expect to retire. A third of women answered at 55 – 65, which is probably considered the normal retirement age. The largest response was 40%, who said they expected to retire at 66 – 75 while 24% of respondents said they expect they’ll never retire. Never! We know women start businesses for a wide range of reasons, whether for more flexible work arrangements, to fulfil career aspirations that aren’t met elsewhere, or to simply to provide a good or service they feel passionate about.
- But does this passion translate to wanting to work forever?
- Does women’s longer life expectancy mean we think we can retire at 75 and still have a good 20 years left to enjoy life?
- Or, is there something else at play?
Wendy Schilg, the CEO of the National Information Centre on Retirement Investments (NICRI) is not surprised by the result.
“The impact of the Global Financial Crisis, combined with Australia’s generally high cost of living, means retirement goals for many women are no longer realistic, remembering many women are already on the back foot financially.” “Our anecdotal evidence at NICRI is that women seem to realise at about age 55 that they need to be more informed about their own financial position – they start to open their super statement envelopes instead of putting it in the filing basket, and most discover that they need to be topping up their super via salary sacrifice. I know there are many women in a position to top up their super, but there are certainly a lot of women not in that position and they retire with a super balance of around $20,000.”
So with retirement incomes at stake, we were also keen to understand from webinar participants whether they consider financial skills to be one of their strengths? Only 43% of women answered “Yes.” Yet Wendy Schilg is optimistic about this result.
“If you had asked this question of women, even 5 years ago, you would have received a far greater negative response. Believe it or not, things are improving and women are taking an interest in, and understanding, their financial position.”
So that’s good news, but it sounds like we still have a way to go. What age do you think you’ll retire? Are you relying on superannuation, or do you have other investments to fund your retirement?
