Also, for much of that time the law permitted employers to require ten years of continuous service for vesting in retirement benefits. The second cohort consists of those women who entered the workforce in the 1970s, significantly and, apparently permanently, increasing the percentage of women in the workforce. These women were among the first to have legal protections regarding pay and equal access to advancement. Finally, the women just entering the workforce are in a third cohort that will find employer-provided retirement benefits increasingly based on amounts contributed at least in part by the employee and in which more investment risk is increasingly shifting to the employee. For this group, Social Security retirement benefits almost certainly will be different than those expected by earlier generations and may also place at least some of the risk of investment on the employee.
Women have special circumstances in planning for retirement.
They live longer than men and consequently will need more money in total. They have slightly lower job tenure with women over 25 having on average 4.7 years with an employer and men having 5.3 years, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data for 1996. Because vesting is based on five year tenure, this slight difference can be critical in earning retirement benefits. Women are more likely to take time out of the workforce for care-giving duties, losing retirement benefit accruals for those years. Women working full time, year round still earn on average less than 80 percent of men earn.