ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, May 10, 1996 TAG: 9605100049
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: B-8 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: WASHINGTON
SOURCE: Associated Press
WOMEN ARE PAYING a high price for shouldering the responsibility of raising their children: retirement security.
Women are half as likely as men to receive employer-provided pensions, and their benefits typically amount to less than half of what males collect, research released Thursday shows.
Labor Secretary Robert Reich, describing the situation as the ``glass ceiling of retirement security,'' said the country must do ``everything possible to end this de facto penalty on working mothers.''
Reich commented at a National Press Club luncheon for the Women's Research and Education Institute, which released the sixth edition of its series of reports on the status of U.S. women.
Released three days before Mother's Day, the book says women continue to bear most of the responsibility for child care and that more single, working mothers are living in poverty than ever before.
It also illuminated the host of circumstances causing pension inequity.
According to the report, only one-third of 1992 retirees over age 55 received pensions. Twenty percent were women; 47 percent, men.
Women change jobs more frequently than men do, leaving after an average of 4.8 years. That means they often don't qualify for employer-provided retirement plans, which usually require five to seven years of service.
More women than men hold part-time jobs or work for employers or in sectors of the economy that don't provide for their retirement.
Although the earnings gap between men and women has narrowed, women continue to earn less than men, and they move in and out of the labor market more frequently, which results in lower pensions.
In 1989, women with benefits as retired employees collected an average annual benefit of $4,330 - less than half the $9,460 men received.
Women make up nearly half the work force, yet nearly two out of three working women - or 24 million - don't have pension plans, Reich said.
More than half of retired men receive pension benefits other than Social Security, but less than a third of retired women do, he said.
Women also are only half as likely to be union members, which would grant them access to collectively bargained pension benefits, he added.
Reich said that was another example of how society ``cannot and should not separate family values from economic values.''
``Allowing the retirement security of women to diminish because they have taken responsibility for bearing and rearing their children is wrong for women, wrong for families and wrong for America.''
Reich said legislation recently proposed by President Clinton would help by, among other things, making it easier for small businesses to create retirement savings plans.
LENGTH: Medium: 57 linesby CNB