Single women Australians need to work longer and stash more cash to ensure a healthy and happy retirement

AUSTRALIAN women without a partner or husband come retirement time will face tough financial challenges, experts warn.

SINGLE Australian women face a “dire” situation in retirement with many expected to live well into their 80s and experience a huge shortfall in funds in life after work.

Both men and women will need to work well into their 70s in order to have sufficient funds once they stop work, super expert and Mercer senior partner David Knox said yesterday.

He said women who don’t have a husband or partner come retirement time face a tough financial challenge with no partner to ease the financial burden once they stop working.

No fallback option ... single women may suffer financially once they retire.

“About two-thirds of people when they retire are in a couple’s situation,’’ he said.

“But for single women, and for those who have had children, it’s a big concern because they don’t have a partner’s support and there is no easy fix or silver bullet.’’

Dr Knox said the proposal that women have a higher compulsory superannuation rate to men would be a good way to help ease the problem.

The shortfall for women is partly blamed for them taking time out of the workforce to have children and also a much higher percentage of females (45 per cent) work part-time compared to males (16 per cent).

Big concern ... single women need to plan for their retirement well in advance.

Research by the Australian Institute of Superannuation Trustees and Mercer also found the number of working Australians aged 65 and older needs to double from 12 per cent to 20 per cent to ensure they have a healthy retirement and improve the sustainability of the nation’s superannuation system.

Make a plan ... Australians need to work into their 70s to ensure they have enough money to fund a healthy retirement lifestyle.

Mr Knox said Australian women should also be receiving compulsory superannuation repayments when they receive paid parental leave.

The Australian Superannuation Funds of Australia’s retirement standard benchmarks that for a couple looking to achieve a comfortable retirement they need to spend $58,364 a year, while those seeking a ‘modest’ retirement lifestyle need to spend $33,766 a year.

Mr Knox said with many Australian retiring in their 60s, they face 20 to 25 years in retirement, and they needed to shorten this gap in retirement and work longer.

Dire situation ... Mercer senior partner Dr David Knox says single women need to stash more money away to ensure they have enough money in retirement.

“It’s not that we all have to work full time until 75 but I think it could be a case of phasing down to two or three days per week,’’ he said.

“For some people it could be taking on a different sort of job that requires less pressure.’’

The retirement age in Australia is due to rise to 70 in 2035.

The AIST and Mercer will today launch a super tracker which assesses the nation’s super system on 10 areas including gender gap, cost of government support and labour force participation — Australia scored 64.9 out of 100 and still has room to move to make the system more sustainable.