A less known, but equally important, reason for the impoverishment of older women is their lack of adequate pension income. Because only a small percentage of older women receive pension income, and most do not have significant personal savings, many women rely on Social Security as their primary source of income. The fact that so many elderly women rely on Social Security as their only source of income is one of the major reasons why so many elderly women are poor. Social Security was designed to provide only the bare minimum level of protection. In fact, the majority of working women remain outside of our private pension system today.
Women tend to work in jobs that have low rates of pension coverage.
In addition, many women leave the labor force for periods of time to care for children and other relatives, jeopardizing their chances for pension coverage. Let me be specific about the realties of women s lives that so greatly impact their access to pension benefits. The average woman now spends 11.5 years out of the workforce to attend to caregiving responsibilities. That's time she is not vesting in a pension or paying into Social Security. Most women do not have access to pensions.