The Relationship between Financial Planning for Retirement and Some Socio-Economic Variables: A Quantitative Study on Middle-Aged Women and Men

Introduction

With the increase and aging in the population, planning for the retirement has gained importance in the world. Retirement, generally described as the end of the active working life, starts with middle age period, concurs with transitional period to old ages, and lasts until the end of lives (Günay, 2013). Therefore, retirement is often discussed by the studies on agedness.

When people get through one life period to another, different problems and needs emerge simultaneously. Especially, when plans facilitating adaptation to retirement which concurs with transitional period to old ages are not made, this causes psychological, social and financial problems affecting more (İçli, 2008). That is because after leaving the working life, individuals face with more difficulties on meeting their needs especially with increasing costs of health care and decreasing income (Onur, 1995). Similarly, being isolated from the social life with the end of active working life may also cause these individuals to become lonely when old, and to lose their active roles and functions in the society, having some psychological problems. The new social position in the transition to retirement, in a sense, brings about the loss of the previous one, fundamentally changing individuals' lives. In this context, adaptation to retirement means investments not only financially and psycho-socially but also on health and life style in order to lead a happy and active life. It should be also mentioned that planning retirement in a society depends, most of the time, on what financial sources and opportunities individuals have. That is because even if most individuals have certain ideas regarding plans for retirement during their working years, some could realize these ideas while for some others materializing their preparations and plans can be impossible due to financial reasons (Yazıcıoğlu, 2006).

Financial retirement planning is examined in two categories namely formal and informal planning. Formal retirement planning includes financial preparation such as saving up cash, buying a house, stock papers, fund or bond for longer investment, purchasing life insurance or saving insurance policy and buying accident insurance policy (Lee, 2003). Informal retirement plans, which are known to be the other choice in the financial planning, refers to attending educational activities about retirement, talking to others and exchanging ideas about retirement (Noone, 2010).

Some studies on planning retirement financially (Lee, 2003; Yazıcıoğlu, 2006; Noone, 2010) drew attention to the fact that especially women experience inequality of opportunities in planning their retirement financially (especially in working areas) and depending on that, that they have insufficient financial sources. For instance, Yazıcıoğlu (2006) suggested that many women could not participate in the active working life. Likewise, as Lee (2003) mentioned, many women still get caught to retirement unprepared due to economic and social reasons. Similarly, compared to men, more women could be made to work in jobs with no retirement opportunities, or to take responsibility domestically which provides no income owing to gender roles and even in professions, they could be paid less relative to their male colleagues (Lee, 2003). For this reason, chances and opportunities which will enable women to plan their retirement financially get restricted.