will it also apply to househusbands?
We need AMARE (Association of Man for Action and Research) too.
Give housewives a cut of spouses' CPF, says reportWomen end up poorer than men in old age, point out two NGOs
By Lynn Lee
HOUSEWIVES should be given a cut of their working spouses' Central Provident Fund (CPF) contribution so that they, too, can build up a nest egg to rely on in their golden years.
This is especially necessary for women who have given up the opportunity to work and stay at home to raise children while their husbands work, the Tsao Foundation and the Association of Women for Action and Research (Aware) noted in a report yesterday.
HOW THE GENDERS COMPARE
# Economically active:
In 2000, 55.5 per cent (or 868,000) of women were economically active, compared to 81.1 per cent (1.324 million) men. Of the economically inactive women, 398,600 were housewives.
# CPF membership and balance:
In 2000, 134,292 men aged 50 to 54 were CPF members. They had an average of $66,123 in their accounts before retirement. In contrast, 117,374 women aged 50 to 54 were CPF members, with an average of $39,211 in their accounts before retirement.
# Education:
In 2000, 68.5 per cent of women aged 50 to 59 had below secondary education, compared to 54.8 per cent of men.
# Financial support:
In 2000, among women aged 65 to 69, 78 per cent relied on their children for allowances, 6 per cent on their spouse, 7 per cent on employment/business, and 6 per cent on savings/interest earned.
For men aged 65 to 69, 51 per cent said they relied on children for allowances, 1 per cent on spouse, 28 per cent on employment/business, and 14 per cent on savings/interest earned.
# Disability:
In 2000, among those aged above 65, there were 5,040 women who were not ambulant, compared to 2,530 men.
Past retirement age and without a job, they would be in dire straits should their families be unable to provide for them financially.
The report said that women generally outlived men, earned less, had less in their CPF accounts, and were more prone to some disabilities. The net effect: Women end up poorer than men.
So the two non-governmental organisations also called for the balances in a deceased's Special and Medisave accounts to be automatically transferred to the surviving spouse.
They suggested that the wife of a CPF member also be notified if he nominates a beneficiary other than her, or when he withdraws his money, among other things.
And they want job upgrading schemes to be targeted equally at women in their 40s and 50s without secondary education to help them stay employable, and said further studies should be done on the informal sector and the income security of women.
The phenomenon of women getting poorer than men as they get older is most clearly seen among those in their 50s to 80s today, according to the 134-page report, put together over a period of more than two years by consultant demographer G. Shantakumar and a 19-member committee from Aware and the Tsao Foundation.
In 2000, males aged 50 to 54, for instance, had an average of $66,123 in their CPF accounts before retirement, while their female counterparts had $39,211.
Among those aged 50 to 59, more men than women had secondary education.
And only a total of 9 per cent of women aged 70 to 74 drew on savings and interest earned, or relied on business and employment to sustain themselves, compared to 27 per cent of their male counterparts.
The plight of older women should not be seen as a one-off situation just because younger women today are more educated and empowered than their mothers and grandmothers, said Dr Mary Ann Tsao, president and chief executive officer of the Tsao Foundation.
'Income and CPF disparities show that younger women will still face money problems, because of how they age differently from men,' she said.
In 2000, for example, only 55.5 per cent of women aged over 15 were part of the labour force, compared to 81.1 per cent of men in the same category.
The income gap between men and women also widened as they grew older, with women between 35 and 39 earning a median monthly income of $2,432, while their male counterparts earned $3,045.
Women were also more prone to disabling diseases such as arthritis. In 2000, twice as many women over 65 were non-ambulant, compared to men.
The organisations are submitting the report as feedback to the Government. But in the meantime, Aware president Braema Mathi wants women to be more pro-active when it comes to health and wealth.
