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Abstract
Women still do most of the caregiving in our families. What goes too little noticed is that it prevents them from saving adequately for retirement. The authors examine the evidence and it is convincing.
Notes
Notes
1 Data for earlier years (1989 to 2007) show similar differences in retirement savings and wealth by caregiving risks.
2 We cannot calculate median DB wealth in the same way since the sample sizes for those with caregiving risks and DB pension wealth can become unreliably small.
3 We also considered whether those with caregiving risks have lower savings because they spend more money financially supporting others. Only a minority of households with or without caregiving risks provide financial support to family members. There is no systematic relationship between financial support and caregiving risks. Details available upon request.
4 To keep the discussion manageable, we do not separately show the link between these intermediating factors and savings. People with lower earnings, fewer hours, greater job instability, worse health, and shorter planning horizons systematically have less wealth and are less likely to participate in a retirement plan. Moreover, our summary data, not shown here, indicate that caregiving further widens these gaps by labor market indicators, health status, and financial planning horizon. See also Weller and Tolson (Citation2019) for additional results.
5 Our conclusions on earnings differences by caregiving risk hold up when we restrict the sample to only those who have a 401(k) plan. In some instances, though, the sample sizes become unreliably small, so that we base our estimates on all workers in Table 6.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Christian E. Weller
Christian E. Weller is a professor of public policy at the University of Massachusetts Boston and a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress.
Michele E. Tolson
Michele E. Tolson is a public policy PhD candidate at the University of Massachusetts Boston.