Women Outlive Men. Why Do They Retire Earlier?

Women have been retiring earlier than men in the United States, though that is generally not in their financial interest, according to research by Nicole Maestas, a professor of healthcare policy at Harvard Medical School. The research found that husbands and wives tend to retire at around the same time, but that because women typically marry older men, the joint retirement of married couples means that married women retire at younger ages than their husbands do, reports the New York Times . Married women tend to be two to three years younger than their husbands, and retire two to three years earlier, the data suggests. That earlier retirement age "seems counterintuitive," said Maestas, since women have longer life expectancies and have shorter careers due to delayed or interrupted labor force participation while raising children.