Every Woman's Guide To Retirement

By Alice Mantel

Assuming that a woman retires today at 65, she can expect to have another 20 productive years before slowing down. The central theme of Every Woman's Guide to Retirement is that doing some planning – financial, housing and social – will lead to a more rewarding retirement phase. 

Women retirees face different

• Language: English
• Publisher: Mantel Advisory
• Release date: Oct 4, 2019
• ISBN: 9781925949285

Alice Mantel

My primary professional background is as a lawyer practising in both family law and elder law. This book draws on that background, combined with solid research and my personal experience as a worker, a parent and a carer. In developing the contents, I have spoken with many friends and acquaintances about their experience of caring for family members and what they believed they needed from a useful guidebook.

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Preface

Old age was growing inside me. It kept catching my eye from the depths of the mirror. I was paralysed sometimes as I saw it making its way toward me so steadily when nothing inside me was ready for it.

Simone de Beauvoir, author, Force of Circumstance

The kernel of this book grew out of my reluctance to accept retirement as a real possibility in my own life. Despite my dissatisfaction with the demands of professional life and a growing desire for more personal freedom, I resisted making a declaration of retirement until I realised that unconsciously I had taken steps towards a post-work life.

As a lawyer working in many facets of legal practice for over 30 years, the personal and intellectual demands of the profession have always engaged and challenged me.

However, eventually I realised that I wanted to disengage from the constant stress of working in family law to set up a new legal practice focused on the needs of older clients.

I was reading voraciously to understand the financial side of aged care to better advise clients, but I was also clear that I did not want full-time work. I wanted to share my knowledge in a more creative context, so I slowly retired from the daily practice of the law and took the jump into the retirement pond.

In the course of my practice, I had visited many aged care facilities and recently been to more funerals than weddings. From both my clients’ experience and my own, I was finding this stage of life both confusing and draining with few guidebooks to assist. Looking for advice, I found most retirement books either too blokey, too financial or too optimistic and nothing quite right. Writing an accessible, practical book to assist women to have a fulfilling retirement seemed a logical goal for my post-work life. From my perspective, women experience retirement differently to men. Women are the unrecognised carers and the charitable volunteers of later life. But books about retirement often do not meet or reflect their interests and needs. My focus is to remedy that situation.

Researching and writing this book combines both my professional and personal experience. Retirement gave me the opportunity to withdraw from legal practice in order to reflect and develop this project. Most surprisingly, I discovered that there were many stories out there waiting to be told. I hope that readers’ input will improve the reliability and usefulness of this book in the future.

My heartfelt thanks to my patient and knowledgeable reviewers, Dr Sally Denshire and Charles Jago for their comments and ideas throughout this work, and to Geoff Harper for his comments in respect of the finance chapter.

chap1

What does retirement mean to you?

Ageing is not lost youth but a new stage of opportunity and strength.

Betty Friedan, author The Feminist Mystique

Mention retirement to some people and immediately they think of freedom. Freedom from work, freedom from the drudgery of dealing with clients, and freedom to travel to all those places on their bucket list. For others, however, the idea of retirement strikes fear into their heart. They wonder how they will manage if they are not employed, receiving a regular income and having a daily routine.

Whether you cannot wait to leave your job or cannot bear the thought of leaving it, retirement will bring a profound change to the way you are now living your life. It can be a period of great activity and productivity – if that’s what you want. Or, it can be a v-e-r-y long series of afternoons reading a book.

Retirement represents approximately a third of your lifespan, with no instruction booklet handed out on how to spend that time. At the end of the day, your last decades literally represent your own work. Have you done a good job of making a meaningful life? What will your legacy be?

Why would you need a book to assist you in the perfectly natural process of getting older? Well, you probably don’t need a book, any more than a mum-to-be needs a book to explain the process of giving birth. Theoretically you understand the process of retirement, however this book can alert you to how to better manage some of the issues likely to arise in this long and unpredictable period.

In my experience, many women are not well-equipped for the practicalities of retirement. I admit that this very generalised statement may not apply to you specifically. But I am constantly surprised how many women are not interested in the financial and legal decisions being made in their household. Not because they are not capable of being well-informed, but because many women think that it’s boring, or it’s not important for them. This is not a question of age, education or income: it’s an attitude of leaving it to the spouse to decide how joint money will be spent or how the paperwork will be done. Any lawyer who has worked in family law, as I have, will likely have encountered this attitude amongst many of their female clients.

Despite our participation in the workforce and our major role in the upbringing of our children, many women still avoid involvement in the details of their finances. Sometimes it’s because the partner uses his control over the family finances as a means of asserting his position and it’s easier to let him decide. But what happens when unexpectedly, for any number of reasons, a spouse may no longer be around? Suddenly without their decision-maker, women realise they don’t know who is their insurer, what their super provides or where their title deeds are located.

This book is intended to assist you to be informed and understand the implications of your very important decisions before a crisis occurs and you rely on someone else’s opinion. Let me be clear – getting a second well-informed opinion is always a good idea, but you are the best person to know your own needs for your situation.

Here are my supporting credentials: professionally I have been a lawyer for 30 years advising others to make good decisions; I have personally experienced many of the issues about which I write; and I have researched as much as I think you, as a reader, will want to absorb in a practical handbook. For further information you can refer to the online resources in the final Resources chapter. 

Defining retirement

Traditionally, retirement has many negative connotations associated with a retreat from relevance into dependence and ill-health. Retirement used to be primarily a male experience.

As the main breadwinner, once the man stopped working the family lost its main source of income. The family moved into a grand parenting role before the man died a few years later. Being retired was a relatively short period of decline before death for men, while women carried on their domestic duties as widows.

Acknowledging the increasing life expectancy of humans, modern sociologists often divide our life span into four ages:

The first age: childhood, education and dependency;

The second age: adulthood – younger and middle-aged;

The third age: no longer working, children have left home;

The fourth age: frail and dependent.

In this third age, retirement generally represents a significant period of over 20 years in everyone’s life. Although women spend a significant part of their life in the working environment, it is more likely that their domestic role continues very much unchanged into the retirement period. This factor probably enables women to make the transition into unpaid work with far greater ease than their male breadwinners.

Over the past 50 years, the scope of retirement has grown immeasurably. Retirement has become a marketer’s playground, as retirees can expect to contribute to the economy as consumers, spenders and the targets of new opportunities over several decades. Retirees can now participate in a huge range of seniors events – festivals, cruises, tours – which attract the active, healthy group of older people who have both the time and money to create a new sector in the economy.

Those retirees in the third age also known as the young-old between 60 and 80 years, are more likely to experience at least a decade of good health and active involvement. Those in the old-old group are loosely described as being over 80 years and in their fourth age. This is the age of increasing disability, frailty and interdependence. Thanks to medical and lifestyle improvements, women can expect to spend many more years in this latter stage.

It is a sobering perspective that most of us will move from the one group into the other before we shuffle off our mortal coil. It is likely we will experience most of the medical and social aspects traversed in this book, so an informed attitude better prepares us and our families for the uncertainties of older age.

Why write a book intended mainly for women?

I have titled this book "Every woman’s guide…" because I believe that with some planning and a basic level of financial and physical health, every woman can expect to look forward to a further 20 years of productive living after retirement to reveal her real talents and character to the world. As a reader, your circumstances may not be identical to those that I propose. You might not yet be old enough to see retirement on the horizon personally, or you may be a carer for ageing relatives. In any case, I have tried to forecast the issues that you may encounter, guiding you to make more confident, better informed decisions for those you care for.

This book therefore intends to be a realistic but positive guide to venturing into the retirement stage of your life. It attempts to cover the broad range of predictable life issues faced by women in their mature years. While owning your home and holding substantial superannuation should put you in a comfortable position, financial security only contributes to part of the picture. An open attitude and participating in meaningful activities will promote your well-being over time as much as a good income. Continuing to learn and being involved with others will bring personal satisfaction beyond mere dollars.

Modern Australian women can expect to have an active retirement and not a retreat to the stereotype of carpet slippers and cups of tea as it might have been 50 years ago. This period can be an opportunity to make a significant contribution to your community, to learn a new language, skill or follow an interest unrestricted by having to earn an income. Exploring and embracing retirement can lead to a whole new lifestyle that gives depth and colour to an otherwise ordinary life.

While male readers may also find this book useful, I recognise that women have different experiences and needs to men. I encourage women to use their life experience to rediscover and rejuvenate themselves in their later years, freed from the restrictions and obligations to either their birth family or their own family. After a lifetime of caring for others, this book advocates that women balance their caring obligations with their personal interests, skills and friendships to meet their own needs into the future.

As workers, carers and creative individuals, women take responsibility for many decisions, for themselves and their children, but also for parents and partners in their later years. Prior to retirement, examples of questions you might ask:

Can I continue working after 65? I really need the money.

When can I access my superannuation?

What options do I have to care for my elderly parents?

In your later retirement, you might be thinking about different issues, such as:

Can I get some extra help at home?

Should I move in with my son’s family?

Have I organised everything for when I am gone?

In writing this book, I aim to answer questions about topics that I think you should understand as you approach retirement. Having basic information will assist you to be better prepared and steer you in the right direction to get more help. In researching each topic, I am writing from both a professional and a personal perspective. As a lawyer, I have shared in the lives of many clients and tried to advise them as best I could. While in my own life, I have learned about the experience of others in their early retirement phase, as well as my own.

Of course, this book cannot promise you with certainty is how to make the last third of your life a time of happiness and satisfaction. Your attitude is the main driver of that experience, mostly unrelated to your financial position. Realistically, we all need a basic level of financial security, but humans are complex creatures and more money does not automatically bring more happiness. Our health and our relationships with family and friends contribute at least as much as, if not more to our happiness quota as abundant financial resources.

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Preparing for retirement

Yes, you can have it all, but not all at the same time. Set your own priorities, trust your gut and follow your heart.

Quentin Bryce, former Australian Governor-General

If you are reading this book, chances are that you are planning for the future, perhaps your own, or perhaps for a family member. Retirement is a confronting issue, not only for us personally but also because we are likely to play a role in someone else’s life – whether a parent, a child or our partner. Once we reach the age of 50 or thereabouts, ageing becomes a reality we can comprehend. We experience our bodies changing, we become aware of our parents’ growing frailty or we notice that our career expectations are shrinking.

Our sixth decade can be a time of consolidation. We have become experts in our work; if we are lucky our income reflects our experience. Our expenses and child caring responsibilities have reduced while our financial situation will often have stabilised. Provided we remain healthy, it can be a very fulfilling time in our lives. But the decade of middle age also brings a subtle but growing realisation that things will not stay the same as we progress towards the latter end of our allotted span.

Without wanting to stereotype whole generations of the population, I find it convenient to use a framework that tags each generation with a characteristic. Baby boomers refers to people born between 1946 and 1965 who were born into an extended period of peace and economic growth after World War II. Being born into economic stability, gave the baby boomer generation the confidence to explore and innovate, developing concepts such as a youth culture, and equality for women and other groups in society which still continue today.

This generation also witnessed change across Australian society. The previously largely Christian, homogenous population, experienced waves of immigrants (from Europe after WWII and from Asia after the Vietnam War) bringing new foods and cultures to Australia.

Over time, innovations such as accessible contraception, home computers and mobile phones have created an activist generation that welcomes technology and change and brings a perspective that will permeate the aged sector now and into the future. That ongoing determination to challenge the status quo can be seen even as the life expectancy of baby boomers increases and they insist on changing the previous paradigm of rigid medically-based nursing homes.

Women of the baby boomer generation have seen their lives grow with greater opportunity in employment, education and awareness of personal capacity. However they still suffer great financial disadvantage – on average coming to retirement with less than half of the superannuation benefits of men. At the same time, they are likely to live longer and are more likely to care for ageing parents, their older partner and their grandchildren.

Working baby boomers have had some of the benefits of the compulsory superannuation scheme, but, coupled with a gendered pay difference, their financial situation is still more precarious than the subsequent X and Y generation workers. Women in their 50s now have more financial security since the introduction of compulsory superannuation contributions in the 1990s.

However, they still carry the burden of lower pay and an interrupted working life in order to take up caring responsibilities, for children and often for other family members. Women also comprise the largest group of casualised and part-time workers, which again reduces their ability to accumulate superannuation benefits needed to protect them from a life of poverty.

The take-home lesson from these economic realities? It is never too early to start planning for your retirement. It isn’t easy to simply contribute more to your super, as many writers suggest, when it’s all you can do to pay the mortgage and your electricity bill. But it is a goal that you can include in your weekly budget.

This book does not assume that all readers have the benefit of being in a two-income family. If you are – great! You should be consciously reducing your personal debts and putting more into your super towards your retirement. However if you are just managing on one income, whatever even small amount you can save represents a step in the right direction.

I am not suggesting a life of grim austerity as you head towards retirement, but small changes in your daily expenditure can reap long-term benefits. Living in a prosperous first-world country, many Australians see subscription TV, a weekly manicure or a cleaner to keep the house under control as a necessity. These are nice-to-haves, but certainly not essential if they prevent you putting $100 per week towards paying off your credit card or into your super.

But retirement is not only about super. It is also about what you want to do for the next third of your life. It’s about having interests and activities beyond paid work and developing new friendships that reflect your independent and mature self. There is more about managing financial matters in Chapter 4, and developing your interests and activities in Chapter 9.

More than a worker or a homemaker

With work being so central to our identity and role within society, many have said that modern Western society classifies us all as workers first and as individuals second. For women this can be a real dilemma as they try to juggle the roles of worker, homemaker and one’s own creative life.

Until 1966 the Commonwealth Public Service barred the employment of married women. Married women were employed only as temporary employees who could not be supervisors, and were restricted in their ability to accumulate superannuation. This reflected a societal view that homemaking was the ideal female occupation, even though to an extent this reflected an upper/middle class world view.

Women who lost their male provider – whether through death or separation – were normally relegated to work in the most menial and low-paid jobs, such as cleaning, cooking or waiting in order to support their families.

While working-class women always needed to earn an income, middle-class women usually only entered the paid workforce for a short time prior to marriage. Female workforce participation has therefore been marginalised both in terms of contribution and financial need. This historical attitude persists today.

With the rise of the feminist movement, women aimed for equal choices in education and representation in professions such as law, accountancy or the sciences. Increased participation of women in the whole employment spectrum has continued in the last 30 years, although a large and increasing part of these roles remain part-time or casual. This directly reduces female accumulation of superannuation and job seniority.

In 1975, 46% of women aged between 15 and 64 years held a job. In 2015, the Treasury reported that 66% of women in that age group worked, with an increase to 70% expected by 2054-55. By 2019, the Workplace Gender Equality Agency reported that there were 73.3% women in the workforce, reflecting how changes in welfare benefits can affect employment attitudes¹. Few women now see being solely a homemaker as a desirable goal (except perhaps for some of the very wealthy), not only because of a perceived lower social status, but also because it lacks economic benefits such as superannuation and a separate income.

Since the 1970s, generations of women have grown up with the expectation of having it all – a well-paid job, a fulfilling relationship, as well as 2.2 children. In Australia, particularly in the capital cities, this identity has come at a cost. In recent decades, for most families buying a house, having holidays and a comfortable lifestyle has required two full-time workers, often with a sacrifice of personal fulfilment and a compromise of family relationships. Most single women, single parents or women who have become single find it almost impossible to enjoy the same living standard as their partnered friends.

Working longer

Australian government policy reflects international policies in encouraging people to work to a later age. This policy aims to both reduce individual reliance on public funds and also improve a person’s health and their income-earning ability. For some, poor health or family needs can initiate the move to retirement. However, for many successful women, leaving a hard-fought career without a future direction can lead to much personal anxiety.

There are alternatives for women who are not ready to slow down. The retirement phase offers women many opportunities to use the experience and skills of previous employment in a new and more satisfying personal context, once they venture beyond the traditional work environment.

Where once women were unlikely to work beyond 60, economic pressure will now likely force many to continue until they reach age pension eligibility, which has been steadily increased. With insufficient superannuation benefits or an existing mortgage, many women cannot afford to retire until they are assured of a pension income. Currently around 12.9% of persons aged over 65 are in the workforce, with this figure expected to increase to 17.3% by 2054-55.²

Of course, even if we remain willing to take on a new employment role, our future employer might not be. While discriminating against potential employees on the basis of their age is officially reprehensible, anecdotally any job applicant 50 years or older would have had suspicions that they had been discriminated against because of their age. I look at the issue of ageism in the workforce in more detail in Chapter 3.

However even involuntary retirement can bring fresh choices to enable you to redefine, rediscover and reinvent yourself. You can explore a range of options – ceasing work, working part-time, changing work and starting another business, or finally accepting a non-employed life and making that a worthwhile project in itself. Finding the right path requires a certain amount of exploration before you can enjoy this time in your life.

When is the right time to retire?

Ending one’s formal work career is a significant step in any worker’s life. Once marked by gold watches and congratulatory dinners, these days the event tends to be more subdued, with retirees experiencing mixed emotions of relief or regret.

Whether we retire voluntarily or due to changed circumstances such as personal or family health issues, it represents the loss of our work identity, the income and the recognition that accompanies a successful working life. These issues affect single people just as much as couples. In fact, singles are more likely to depend on their work for their regular income and more subtly, they rely on work colleagues as a source of social interaction.

Difficulties in the transition to retirement period extend beyond stereotypes. Any well-prepared individual can experience emotional challenges at retirement, even with significant preparation. You may have defined yourself as a professional for many years, with confidence in your knowledge and your ability.

Respected in your position, you have achieved the status of a senior role model. Then suddenly, everything that has defined you disappears. Your income falls, while your job description becomes retired, with all the inherent associations of old age and incompetence. In your own mind, just another week has passed and