The U.S. has the greatest percentage of elderly women in poverty of all the major industrialized nations. Women on average can expect to live 19 years into retirement while men can expect to live 15 years. A widowed woman is four times more likely, and a single or divorced woman five times more likely, to live in poverty after retirement than a married woman. Almost 12 million women work for small firms that do not offer pension plans. Two-thirds of working women are employed in sectors of the economy that have the lowest pension coverage rate, including the service and retail sectors.
Workers covered by union agreements are nearly twice as likely to have a pension.
Women, however, are half as likely to be in these jobs. Women 65 and older are nearly twice as likely to die of heart disease than of all cancers combined.