The gender gap seems to have extended into Canadians’ views of retirement with twice as many men than women surveyed saying they want to work past age 65, according to the second edition of the Sun Life Canadian Unretirement Index.

“We also found that men and women had diverse opinions around what factors should be considered in a retirement plan, with women more likely to cite long-term care, low interest rates and death of a spouse,” says Kevin Dougherty, president, Sun Life Financial Canada (TSX:SLF).

Other survey findings show that men and women think differently about financial planning and confidence in retirement.

Seventy-one per cent of women who said they will be working past age 65 said they will be doing so to earn enough money to pay for basic living expenses compared to 65 per cent of men. More women (61%) also believed their company pension will not be enough to live on compared to men (56%).

Forty-nine per cent of Canadian women surveyed were very confident they would have enough money for basic retirement living expenses compared to 57% of men.

Twenty-nine per cent of women surveyed were very confident they will have enough money to enjoy the lifestyle they want compared to 36% of men.

Women tended to be less confident about the overall economy and their personal finances compared to men.

“Women have substantial reasons for worrying that they won’t have enough money to enjoy the lifestyle they want in retirement,” sayx Alison Konrad, professor of organizational behavior at the Richard Ivey School of Business, University of Western Ontario.

“The average Canadian woman earns about 66% of what the average Canadian male earns. So even though women tend to put a larger percentage of their income into their retirement nest eggs, men save almost $1,900 more each year.”

Working with an advisor may help women assuage their retirement concerns.

“Interestingly, we found that Canadians on the whole were significantly more confident about their retirement if they had worked with a financial advisor for a year or more than those who did not have an advisor,” Dougherty says.

The study was conducted by Fleishman Hillard from Aug. 17 to Sept. 9, 2009. Telephone interviews were conducted by Interviewing Service of America using a random-digit dial sampling method. Quotas and weights were applied to gather a sample of 1,202 people working either full- or part-time, which was representative of the Canadian working population between the ages of 30 and 65.

IE