Women facing retirement with low super balances

I spoke on a panel about people with ‘modest’ superannuation. The panel was asked to discuss what superannuation funds could do for members of superannuation funds who were likely to retire with relatively low amounts in superannuation.

The example we worked with was ‘Wendy’, a single mother, who at age 59 had $95,000 in super, a $95,000 mortgage and two young adult children living at home because they were studying and working part time.

I have interviewed many people in similar situations to Wendy’s. Drawing on this knowledge, the points I made were:

1. A better life. More than anything in the world, people in Wendy’s situation wanted to make sure that their children have a better life that they did. Key to that was for their children to complete their education. Key to that was being able to stay at home and not pay rent.
2. Debt is an emotional burden. My prediction is that Wendy will use her super to pay off her mortgage as soon as she is able to, because of the financial and emotional burden a mortgage creates.
3. A gap in the system for women. Because of all if this, Wendy will have little if any super to take into retirement. She has fallen through a gap in the system.

In saying all this, I wanted to convey the message that:

• Super fund members take family and community into account when making their decisions about super, because that is how we all make most of our decisions and how we should make them.
• There is a lack of useful and usable information available for people in Wendy’s situation. If she makes a decision that the super funds think is wrong, who is to blame for that?

I am available as a speaker for conferences on retirement.

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