During those decades of service, her employer assured her she was accruing pension benefits. After a lifetime of hard work, she was forced to leave her job for health reasons. Like most women, Mary trusted her employer, rather than taking an active role in managing her retirement. Although women have entered the work force in record numbers, their access to retirement benefits has not followed at the same level. More than one in 4 women end up impoverished because they depend on Social Security as their main source of retirement income.
Women are often the ones that suffer the most from lack of planning for retirement.
On average, women live five years longer than men do, so they need to plan to pay for those years. Second, they have lower lifetime earnings than men. Women also usually have small pensions, if any at all. One of the biggest problems facing women, however, is the result of women taking time off to have and raise children. Research indicated that women leave the work force and pit 15 percent of their careers on hold to raise children and care for family members.