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Boomer Women Broke Barriers, But Now They're Retiring Broke

Red Orbit, 5/6/08

Abstract:

Women on the leading edge of the baby boom generation are also at the forefront of other trends ones that may work to their detriment in retirement.

These women were knocking bars off the doors of employers in the 1960s and 1970s, applying for jobs that would have been denied them in the past. But once hired, many found that the struggle had just begun. They often were massively underpaid when compared with their male colleagues. And they discovered ceilings that could be as hard to break through as doors.

At the same time, they were part of a wave of social change. Marriages, if entered into at all, were less likely to be lifelong commitments than their parents' had been.

Now they are headed toward retirement. And I worry that they may be caught in a generational crevice, with their retirement made less secure by their early difficulties finding work, the lower wages they endured in the days when equal work seldom meant equal pay, and by changes in the pension system.

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