Recent History

In Part 28 of the Pension Series, I stated that age, tenure, and (in some cases) gender mattered more than any singular pension design element during a pensionable worker’s Golden Albatross pension decision. I based that statement on the evidence from my master’s thesis research. For my thesis, I ran a survey for pensioners and pensionable workers which I called the Golden Albatross survey. To complete the thesis I statistically analyzed the results of the survey, which I discussed in Pension Series Part 28. This post expands on the gender portion of those findings by focusing on the impact of defined benefit pensions for women in retirement.

Much like Pension Series Part 24 (Black Pensions), for this article I examine if and how the Golden Albatross decision-making framework should be modified for a specific sub-set of pensionable workers. In this case, that sub-set is women. In doing so, I specifically focus on the disparities in retirement savings between men and women and the impact of defined benefit (DB) pensions on women’s retirement outcomes. I conclude that the Golden Albatross calculation is different for female versus male pensionable workers. Continue reading →