As women shoulder the burden of childcare and elder care, many feel financially held back.
Transcript:
CONWAY GITTENS: So can you first break down what exactly the sandwich generation is and how it’s evolved over time.
MONA MAHAJAN: Look, the sandwich generation, for those that are not aware, is that generation of women that are dealing with both caring for children and caring for their elderly loved ones. So they’re somewhat sandwiched in the middle there and in some cases struggling both emotionally and financially.
CONWAY GITTENS: According to your recent study, nearly 2/3 of women in the sandwich generation say that caregiving has impacted their financial situation. Can you elaborate on the unique financial burden that these women are facing?
MONA MAHAJAN: Look, these women in the sandwich generation do have a unique financial burden and a unique source of stress. And that is one. They are often the ones that have to take a step back in their careers, or they step out of their careers altogether to use that time to care for both their children and their loved ones and elderly loved ones as well. And so the time that they take out of the workforce or even the step back that they take, that really does cause them to have not only lower savings, potentially lower 401(k) and potentially lower long term investments overall. So there really is that financial component of caregiving that comes into play as your career is impacted as women in the sandwich generation have felt.
CONWAY GITTENS: What are the long term implications on this when it comes to financial security for women, particularly when it comes to retirement savings, savings and career advancement?
MONA MAHAJAN: Yeah, absolutely. Look, women are still considered the CFOs of their households. They tend to make about 85% of the decisions, whether it’s purchasing groceries, purchasing new clothes for the kids, vacation planning, et cetera. But what we’ve noticed from our study is that a lot of women in these childcare and caregiving situations in that sandwich generation, they tend to focus on near-term financial goals. So do they have enough savings for their children or enough savings for their aging parents, or even enough savings for their own health care needs and their family’s health care needs. Those are short term savings goals. What they lack, though, is that longer term perspective. Where can they look to develop a long term, secure financial future. And those are the type of planning things that we want to make sure here at Edward Jones that women in this sandwich generation are starting to focus on more and more.
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