B4 N THE NEW YORK TIMES, MONDAY, OCTOBER 26, 2020PERSONAL FINANCEWhen Representative Katie
Porter ended her troubled mar-
riage, leaving was tough, but one
thing made it easier: For years,
she had handled the family’s in-
vestments and savings plans, and
she was confident that she and her
children would be OK.
“It was really important to me
to know that I would be able to
feed and house and care for my
children that next month, and the
month after that,” Ms. Porter,
Democrat of California, said of
leaving her husband, who she said
had physically abused her.
Not enough women, she said,
see competency in personal fi-
nance as key to freedom and secu-
rity.
A study published in June by
the Swiss banking group UBS un-
derscored that point. It found that
even the most educated and high-
achieving millennial women were
not as involved as their husbands
in long-term financial decision
making.
In fact, millennial women —
part of a generation thought to
have pushed for open-minded-
ness about gender roles — exhib-
ited less financial independence
than boomer women did. Among
millennial women living with
male partners, 54 percent said
they deferred to their partners for
long-term financial planning
rather than sharing that responsi-
bility or taking the lead them-
selves, compared with 39 percent
of boomer women, according to
the study, which surveyed 1,320
women with at least $250,000 in
investable assets.
The primary reason those wom-
en deferred was a belief that their
husbands knew more, the study
found.
There have been worrying
signs of a lack of progress toward
gender equality at all income lev-
els. A Gallup survey published in
January found that opposite-sex
couples ages 18 to 34 were no more
likely than older couples to divide
household chores equitably.
The gender gap in financial au-
tonomy is especially critical now,
with women at particular risk of
getting sidelined during the co-
ronavirus pandemic. Of the 1.1 mil-
lion people 20 and older who left
the work force in August and Sep-
tember, nearly 80 percent were
women, according to an analysis
by the National Women’s Law
Center.
A study published last month by
the consulting firm McKinsey &
Company found that a third of
mothers had considered leaving
the work force or downshifting
their careers during the pan-
demic, with a majority of those cit-
ing child care challenges as a pri-
mary reason.
The UBS study also found that
fewer millennial women than
boomer women saw financial par-
ticipation as necessary for equal-
ity, with 76 percent of millennials
(ages 24 to 39) saying it was es-
sential, compared with 89 percent
of boomers (ages 56 to 74).
Many conversations about
women’s empowerment are fo-
cused on negotiating salary in-
creases, Ms. Porter said. “But
what good does that raise do you if
you don’t know what your savings
plan is going to be with that little
bit of extra money?” she said.
“What good does it do to climb
that ladder and get that next
higher-paying job with better
benefits if you don’t take the time
to invest that retirement fund cor-
rectly?”
Sallie Krawcheck, chief execu-
tive and co-founder of Ellevest, an
investment platform for women,
said millennials might not have
realized that if they do not have fi-
nancial equality, they do not have
independence.
“Younger women haven’t had
as many hard-won lessons,” she
said.
The UBS study has limitations:
It did not survey the boomers
when they were three decades
younger, the age millennials are
today, so it is hard to conclude to
what extent the differing attitudes
are because of age and acquired
wisdom versus other changes.
And the women surveyed, all of
whom had at least a quarter of a
million dollars in investable as-
sets, may not be representative of
their generation over all.
Erin Lowry, a personal finance
adviser and the author of “Broke
Millennial,” said one reason
boomer women may be more
likely to view financial independ-
ence as essential for equality was
that they have witnessed what
can happen without it: Many were
raised by mothers who were de-
nied loans or credit cards in their
names, she said.
Ruth Bader Ginsburg, as the di-
rector of the A.C.L.U.’s Women’s
Rights Project in the 1970s, litigat-
ed a string of cases that paved the
way for the Equal Credit Opportu-
nity Act of 1974, which prohibited
creditors from asking about sex,
marital status or the use of birth
control.
“I know a lot of millennial wom-
en who are feminists, liberated
and whatever, who let their hus-
bands handle all the finances,”
Ms. Lowry said. “It’s very much
still an archetype in heterosexual
relationships.”
One woman, a graduate student
in her 30s, said that when she got
married several years ago, her
husband made most of the money
and handled the couple’s long-
term finances. That meant he had
more say than she did in decisions
like where their daughter went to
school and where they went on va-
cation, she said.
He began to physically abuse
her, she said, but because she de-
pended on him financially, she did
not feel as if she could leave the re-
lationship. It was only after
friends encouraged her to set up a
separate bank account and take
other steps to take control of her
financial life that she could leave.
“There’s a complacency that
the world is equal, we’ve got it
made, we can do anything we
want, we’re going to have awe-
some partners who will be our
equals,” said the woman, who
spoke on the condition of ano-
nymity because of a pending legal
case against her husband and be-
cause she was concerned for her
safety. It’s easy to think financial
autonomy is not essential when it
is, she added.
“It’s part and parcel of our daily
independence,” she said, “which
has to be constantly reaffirmed.”McKinsey & Company found that a third of mothers had considered leaving
the work force or downshifting their careers during the pandemic.
EDUCATION IMAGES/UNIVERSAL IMAGES GROUP VIA GETTY IMAGESMillennial Women Defer
To Husbands on Investing
By JENNY GROSSU.S. Representative Katie Porter,
Democrat of California
BRIAN SNYDER/REUTERSWhen someone retires, three
substantial changes take place,
said Ken Dychtwald, psycholo-
gist, gerontologist and founder
and chief executive of Age Wave, a
consulting and research company.
“They struggle with their iden-
tity, relationships and activity,” he
said. “Some people feel unsettled,
anxious or even bored, but even-
tually they realize that relation-
ships, wellness and purpose really
matter — perhaps more than
ever.”
In his new book, his 17th, “What
Retirees Want: A Holistic View of
Life’s Third Age,” Dr. Dychtwald
and his co-author, Robert Mori-
son, parse how boomers are rede-
fining retirement.
For this book, the authors sur-
veyed more than 100,000
boomers, exploring facets of re-
tirement — family, financial secu-
rity, health, housing, leisure, phi-
lanthropy, work and happiness.
I spoke with Dr. Dychtwald
about the book, the authors’ con-
clusions and also about his per-
sonal views of retirement. The
highlights of our conversation are
below and have been edited and
condensed.How have your views about
retirement changed because of
coronavirus and turning 70 this
year?
I’ve been talking about retirement
for 45 years, and my views are
transforming. That’s partly
sparked by Covid-19 and partly by
turning 70, and also by having
studied so many successful and
unsuccessful retirees over the
past half century.
Now let me unpack that. When I
was getting started in this field, in
the 1970s, we were inclined to
think of retirement as kind of a
short wind-down period, following
a life of hard work. Back then,
when people managed to get to
the end of their work life, it was
kind of a triumph. There was gen-
erally the view that retirement
was a mark of success, and the
earlier one did it, the more suc-
cessful they must be.
It used to be that in retirement
people sought to do things that
they always liked, but didn’t have
time for during their working
years, like taking an extended va-
cation, playing more golf, socializ-
ing with friends, or reading some
good books. That is how I thought
about it, too.
That changed for me when I re-
alized that retirement was getting
longer — and longer. In addition,
our studies were showing that
many retirees were feeling bored
and irrelevant, for decades. And I
also began to notice that what was
emerging was that some of the
most successful role models for
me weren’t winding it up when
they turned 65. In fact, they were
reinventing themselves and start-
ing charities or organizations, or
staying longer with their compa-
nies — with many even doing their
best work.
I decided in my later years it
was not going to be turn out the
lights and devote myself to play-
ing 24/7. I’ve come to see this
evolving stage of life like a port-
folio, and I now have the freedom
and self-awareness to change and
reprioritize my mix of activities. I
view it as having a better balance
between quality time with my
family, work, play, continued
learning and volunteering.
The pandemic this year has giv-
en many of us an enormous appre-
ciation for the preciousness of life.
I’ve come to realize that I’d like to
be usefulmore than youthful.
However, I have been very trou-
bled by the lack of usefulness
among so many of my cohort. I’ve
observed far too many boomers
and older adults make themselves
irrelevant. I was really troubled
when I read that last year the av-
erage American retiree watched
more than 48 hours of television
per week. I don’t believe that’s the
best we can do, or that’s the best
we can be as elder men and wom-
en.I realize that it takes a lot of ef-
fort to remain current, and it takes
a lot of work to understand new
technology and a lot of work to un-
derstand modern culture and un-
derstand why folks like Childish
Gambino or Billie Eilish and her
brother Finneas are so interesting
and to understand the appeal of
TikTok. Stepping outside your
time and your era and being a part
of the present requires a willing-
ness to continually learn and
grow.
I challenge pre-retirees and re-
tirees to ask: How do I try and see
and feel the world from the per-
spective of those far younger than
me? That is an important activity
in our new longevity. That we
spend time and energy not to just
try to hoard our life and our mem-
ories, but that we also actively try
to be empathetic to different peo-
ple, younger people.In your book, you write about
Life’s Third Age. Can you describe
that?
For our first 30 years of life, our fo-
cus is on biological development,
making friends, identity forma-
tion and seeking a partner. Then,
from 30 to 60, it’s a period occu-
pied with building a family and a
productive career. However, be-cause of medical breakthroughs
during the 20th century, what is
now emerging is a whole new
stage of life between 60 to 90. And
that is uncharted territory, but we
know for sure that it offers far
more than the limited retirement
arrangements that our parents
and grandparents pursued.
This new Third Age is about re-
invention of oneself. It’s no longer,
only wow, you have time and are
free to do your thing. It’s about
continuing to grow, learn, meet
new people, try new things and
even discover new purpose. I also
believe that there are important
roles and accountabilities that
need to be filled by today’s elders.
As boomers pave this new terri-
tory, younger generations will
take notice and they will embrace
the fact that life has got some hair-
pin turns and twists over the
course of a 100-year life. They will
have time to work and other time
when they’ll play, and there’s a
good chance that they will pursue
multiple careers over the course
of such a long life. In the future, it
will be commonplace for there to
be continued course-corrections
and cyclical reinventions rather
than this massive retirement.How is retirement a sequence of
shifts over time?People have traditionally thought
of retirement as an on-off switch.
You’re working and then you’re
retired. I see it as a series of
stages. There’s the pre-retirement
“anticipation” period when folks
are imagining what they’ll do and
who they’ll be when they no long-
er work. Then the immediate peri-
od of retirement is like a libera-
tion, a honeymoon period where
people are usually exhilarated.
That only lasts a year or so, and
then there is another shift toward
reorientation where people ex-
plore those big questions of what
am I going to do all day long and
what will matter to me? Then, fur-
ther downstream there is another
shift toward reconciliation, when
folks piece together what their life
was — to make sense of it and turn
it into wisdom and get set to leave
their legacy.
Going forward, I think that
there will be even more shifts for
retirees — or should I say “Third
Agers” as people are forced to re-
craft their plans, or they initiate
the shifts themselves. Some peo-
ple will become either bored or cu-
rious and will consider going back
to school, or starting a nonprofit,
or learning a foreign language or
writing a memoir or training for a
marathon. And, of course, there
are unexpected subplots. Some-
one you love gets sick and you
have to spend your time caregiv-
ing, or your adult kids move back
home. Bingo — all your plans
change.What has emerged from your
research that retirees should think
about?
The importance of interdepend-
ence alongside independence —
we all would do better in our later
years if we’re connected and not
isolated. And how do I maximize
my health span, not just my life
span?
And there’s the serious issue of
funding our longer lives. A third of
the boomers have close to nothing
saved for retirement and no pen-
sions; that is a massive poverty
phenomenon about to happen, un-
less millions of people work a bit
longer, spend less, downsize or
even share their homes with
housemates or family.What is the biggest mistake
retirees make?
Far too many think far too small. I
have asked thousands of people
from all walks of life over the
years who are nearing retirement
what they hope to do in retire-
ment. They tell me: “I want to get
some rest, exercise some more,
visit with my family, go on a great
vacation, read some great books.”
Then most stall. Few have taken
the time or effort to study the
countless possibilities that await
them or imagine or explore all of
the incredible ways they can
spend the next period of their
lives.Retirement Isn’t Just Life Past the Finish Line
By KERRY HANNONKen Dychtwald at his home in Orinda, Calif. He has been studying retirement for decades and just turned 70 himself.
The pandemic has been cause for reflection, he said. “I’ve come to realize that I’d like to be usefulmore than youthful.”JIM WILSON/THE NEW YORK TIMESDEMOCRATIC NATIONAL CONVENTIONGETTY IMAGESDr. Dychtwald said many retirees aim to exercise, read and visit family. He
suggests they should think bigger — and that endeavoring to keep pace with
modern culture, and artists such as Billie Eilish, above, can be enriching.Have a way with words.
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