Men are from Mars, women are from Venus and 401(k)s are off floating around in space somewhere. These are the findings from a new OneAmerica survey released Tuesday to gauge how gender might affect retirement attitudes and readiness.
Men think about retirement more often than women, talk about it more frequently with work colleagues and believe they are more educated about tools needed to prosper in their golden years, according to the Indianapolis-based company.
In the most dramatic example of the difference between the sexes, men self-scored themselves as having a significantly higher level of knowledge than women across 10 personal finance and retirement topics, including student loans and taxation on Social Security benefits.
“We’ve known for quite some time that men and women don’t just think about retirement differently, they also talk about it differently,” Marsha Whitehead, vice president of marketing for retirement services for the companies of OneAmerica, said in a statement. “By understanding these differences, plan sponsors can tailor their education programs to increase the influence they have on male and female participants.”
On broad topics such as addressing pre-retirement debt, men and women showed the same propensity to avoid taking loans or hardship withdrawals at about 71 percent.
When it comes to retirement plan features, men and women both placed the highest priority on a common workplace perk—an employer match on the employee’s contribution to the 401(k) or retirement plan being offered. It was ranked No. 1 by both sexes, followed by having investment options.
Men and women place similar emphasis on plan features that would encourage active retirement planning. But then come the differences. Women are more likely to place higher importance on the employer match (64 percent vs. 61 percent of men). And men are more likely to place importance on investment options (29 percent vs. 21 percent of women).
Men think about retirement more frequently than women. Sixty-nine percent report thinking about it at least monthly, compared to 55 percent of women.
Other highlights from the survey include:
Planning Triggers—Two substantial differences in past triggers are evident. Men are more likely to discuss retirement with work colleagues (29 percent) compared to women (22 percent) and to cite a story in the news or media (16 percent vs 11 percent of women) about retirement.
Frequency, Importance of Monitoring—Men are significantly more likely to monitor their retirement plan more frequently. More than half do so monthly (53 percent) compared to 36 percent of women. While both men and women indicate that knowing their status against goals is important, men are more likely to say “very important” (54 percent) versus women (48 percent).
With more than 20 years serving financial markets, John Sullivan is the former editor-in-chief of Investment Advisor magazine and retirement editor of ThinkAdvisor.com. Sullivan is also the former editor of Boomer Market Advisor and Bank Advisor magazines, and has a background in the insurance and investment industries in addition to his journalism roots.
