Women Living Alone Need to Prepare for Future

There is a growing voice that financial education for women is needed.

It is because women have to bear the responsibility of their lives and finance as their economic power is becoming bigger and the number of women who live alone is increasing.

In reality, however, women`s knowledge and experience in finance remain at a low level.

It is urgent to educate women on financial matters in order for them to plan their own lives, experts stress.

The average life expectancy of Korean women at the end of 2001 rose to the age of 80 for the first time, 7.2 years longer than that of men, 72.8. The former is expected to grow to 82.2 and the latter to 75.5 by 2010. If a woman married a man three years younger than her, she would have to live alone for ten more years.

At the end of 2000, among those who live alone and aged 65 or above, the number of women reached 463,052, 5.8 times that of men, 79,638.

“Women are more exposed to the risk of living without money than men,” said Kang Chang-hee at PCA Asset.

The ratio of female households jumped from 18.5 percent in 2000 to 19.1 percent in 2003. Meanwhile, the number of divorce in 2002 swelled to 145,300.

In contrast, the number of women who joined the National Pension and individual pension plans is relatively small.

At the end of July this year, the number of those who joined the National Pension was 17,037,761. Among them, the number of men reached 11,280,387, accounting for 66.2 percent while that of women reached 5,757,374, accounting for 33.8 percent.

Moreover, it turned out that men joined individual pension plans more than women. Men who joined various pension plans numbered 2,453,000 (67.2 percent) while women numbered only 1,200,000 (33.8 percent) at the end of 2001.

In addition, 63.9 percent of direct stock investors were men while only 36.1 percent was women as of the end of 2002, according to the Korea Stock Exchange.

For funds of Korea Investment and Securities, women accounted for 55.78 percent of those who invested less than 100 million won while men accounted for an overwhelming 83.04 percent of those who invested more than 1 billion won.

“If women who have no future plans and experience come to live alone, they might face a bleak future when they get older,” said Kim Jong-sook at the Korean Women`s Development Institute, stressing the need for thorough preparation for the future.

Suk-Ho Shin Jung-Eun Lee kyle@donga.com lightee@donga.com