Disaggregation of Gendered Differences in Retirement Planning in Urban Ghana

Abstract

<jats:p>The paper investigates gendered retirement planning, using quantitative and qualitative datasets obtained from formal and informal sector workers [n=442]. The analyses show that the majority of workers (45.4%) opined that women’s retirement preparations are tied to men’s, particularly housewives and married ones, reasoning that men are heads of their households. This includes women’s desire to be and/or live closer to their partners. Whilst women’s preparations may be tied to men’s, men often plan for retirement with the support of their spouses. An extent of independence between men and women regarding retirement planning and different levels of societal responsibilities pertains. These are two independent people with different responsibilities, preferences, needs and reasons. However, women are less likely than men to actively plan for retirement. This is inhibited by women’s low income flows compared to their male counterparts. Yet, women need to institute more plans than men because women most often do not have social security and live relatively longer. Significantly, what prompts women to plan differs from what motivates men. This provides a reinforcement of the importance of considering gender when seeking to understand the variables that predict retirement planning tendencies, and might contribute to successfully attaining financial security.</jats:p>

A Scoping Review of Retirement Planning Research Trends in Sub-Saharan Africa

“…Forty-three of the works reviewed were empirical and involved collection of primary data. Apart from articles by Dovie (2018aDovie ( , 2018bDovie ( , 2019Dovie ( , 2020 and also Oteng et al (2018), which employed a mixed methods methodological approach, all the empirical works reviewed were purely quantitative, and employed questionnaires in data collection. In terms of temporal design, the researchers found that all the empirical works were cross-sectional.…”

“…This may suggest that most retirement planning researchers in Sub-Saharan Africa favor or are more comfortable with quantitative research. (Dovie, 2020;Githua et al, 2015) were considered emancipatory in design; both studies had a genderoriented purpose.…”

“…It was not noted that any other authors designed their research instruments this way. Dovie (2020) and Oteng et al (2018) also employed an explanatory mixed methods design; the former designed the questionnaires mostly based on literature review while the latter failed to describe the instrumentation design. In all the mixed methods studies, purposive sampling was used to select some participants from the questionnaire-based survey for further qualitative interviews.…”