Why Do Women Retire Earlier Than Men?

The current trend in America is that women average a life span of almost 87 years which is 4 years longer than that of men. But due to child rearing and other forms of care giving women usually earn less than men over the course of their careers. Why then do women retire earlier than men?

If female workers prolonged retirement until the age of 70 they could retire when the maximum benefit of Social Security kicked in, which often pensions and other investments cannot often match. One reason women do not often wait to 70 according to Professor Maestas, professor of health care policy at Harvard Medical School, is that wives tend to retire at the same time as their husbands, and many women marry men that are older than they are. Married women tend to be two to three years younger than their husbands, and retire two to three years earlier, the data suggests. That earlier retirement age “seems counterintuitive,” she said, “since women have longer life expectancies and have shorter careers due to delayed or interrupted labor force participation while raising children.”

Women would benefit more than men if they simply waited those extra two to three years.

See Jeff Sommer, Women Outlive Men. Why Do They Retire Earlier?, New York Times, July 6, 2018.

Special thanks to Naomi Cahn (Harold H. Greene Professor of Law, George Washington University School of Law) for bringing this article to my attention.