The flexible work that allows women to be caregivers is usually low-waged with few benefits, especially pensions. Only one in five women who work for firms with fewer than 100 employees are covered by a pension plan. Women also change jobs more frequently than men, making vesting in a pension difficult. The reality is that poverty for women in old age too often begins the first day they enter the workforce. When they make decisions about the kind of job they will hold, few women understand the consequences these decisions will present when they retire.
Women are more likely to work part-time.
More than thirty years after passage of the Equal Pay Act, women still earn only about 74 percent of what men earn for the same work. Marital status is a primary determinant of the amount of pension benefits and income that an older woman receives. While a 1995 Census Bureau study recommended marriage as an important alternative for all women as a way to avoid future poverty, unfortunately being married is no guarantee that a woman will have sufficient income in retirement. Married women often count on their husband's retirement benefits to support them in old age, but women tend to outlive their husbands and often their husband's retirement income. Unlike defined benefit plans, the government does not guarantee these voluntary plans.