Till death do us part? Solitary retirement looms over most Singaporean women

Large life expectancy gap threatens couples’ retirement plans.

Married couples are expected to stick together through thick and thin. But retirement can pose a unique challenge even to the sweetest of unions.

According to Manulife Asset Management’s Aging Asia Research Series, most married couples in Singapore do not factor in the fact that one partner may outlive the other when planning for their retirement.

This oversight could spell trouble for wives who will outlive their husbands, as women generally live longer than men.

In Singapore, for instance, majority of couples expect to live in retirement for 24.3 years. But after the death of a husband, widowed wives generally spend another 11 years in retirement alone.

“Marital age differences and the longer average lifespans of females mean that the sole
survivor of a married couple is generally a widowed wife. ARDM reveals that married couples can expect to spend anywhere from 50-75% of their aggregate retirement duration together, but that the sole survivor – usually the wife – is likely to spend a considerable portion of their retirement alone,” the report noted.

Here’s more from the report:

This has significant implications for joint retirement planning as females generally exit the labour market earlier than their male counterparts and thus usually have fewer retirement income resources at their disposal.

However, while income can drop precipitously for the surviving spouse, retirement expenses do not usually halve following the death of a husband or wife as cohabitation delivers economies of scale for living costs.

While marital status may seem incongruous among these three, most individuals in Asia enter retirement as part of a married couple and thus must factor in the likelihood that one partner will outlive the other.

As our longevity risk analysis is based on joint retirement duration for married couples, it is worthwhile to consider the sensitivity of longevity risk to marital status by examining the difference between an individual entering retirement single versus as part of a married couple. The results clearly illustrate the importance of taking joint life expectancy into account when planning for retirement.

In fact, our sensitivity analysis reveals that variations in joint versus single longevity risk across economies arise mainly from differences in male and female life expectancy.

Economies with wide male-female life expectancy gaps, such as Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore, Taiwan andVietnam, evidence by far the largest differences in expected retirement duration for single males versus married couples.