Many women like to think of themselves as taking charge of household financial matters, but a majority are hazy about how they will pay the bills later in life.
The Alliance for Lifetime Income has published data on women's income planning gap in a summary of the results from a recent online survey of 1,000 women who participate in the HerMoney personal finance web forum. The alliance represents annuity writers and distributors.
About 48% of the survey participants had graduate degrees, 68% had an annual household income of $100,000 or more, 68% had investable assets of $250,000 or more, and 43% agreed with the statement, "I have a financial plan for my future."
In spite of the participants' interest in personal finance, just 34% said they had a retirement income plan.
Women's lack of use of retirement income planning could affect their husbands, too.
About 48% of the survey participants who had partners said they had primary responsibility for retirement planning for their households, and 55% of the women who said they usually shared money management responsibilities with partners said they manage household retirement planning, rather than simply sharing responsibility for that with their spouses or partners.
What It Means
The bad news: Even many women who take personal finance seriously enough to be regulars on a personal finance forum are deer in the headlights when it comes to income planning.
The good news, for you: You don't have to wrestle women away from top-level income planners to build an income planning practice.
