BOOMER WOMEN’S SECURITY INITIATIVE

WOMEN’S ABUNDANCE LEADERSHIP INITIATIVE

Unlike any other time in our nation’s history, unless there are dramatic policy shifts, in terms of absolute numbers, baby boomer women, most particularly minority women, will find their elder years to be a “never ending” struggle. After selflessly caring for their children and aging parents, a significant number of our country’s 40 million plus boomer women will not be able to afford to retire, will fall below the poverty line and experience financial insecurity and poorer health in their later years with limited aid from traditional safety nets.

To prevent this national tragedy, the Global Generations Policy Institute (GGPI) has pro-actively conceived, funded and led in the creation of the Women's Abundance Leadership Initiative, a multi-dimensional national initiative whose mission is to lead the United States in the development and implementation of effective policies which will ensure an abundant, secure and dignified quality of life for our nation’s aging baby boomer women and women of all ages in their increasingly vulnerable elder years.

As part of its Women's Abundance Leadership Initiative, in collaboration with the Harvard Generations Policy Program and Journal, GGPI conceived and funded the summer, 2006 publication of Baby Boomer Women: Secure Futures or Not?, a “first-of-its-kind” study comprising a collection of articles originally researched and written for GGPI by nationally and internationally recognized experts on baby boomer women’s policy issues.

The authors - drawn from academia, business and policy institutions - examine a number of critical and often overlooked interrelated issues pertaining to women boomer’s employment, financial, health care, housing and retirement futures. It is intended that their analyses and recommendations will not only stimulate informed dialogue among our nation’s citizens and business, governmental, spiritual, non-governmental and academic communities but also lead to the creation of caring, “out-of-the-box”, systems-focused, intergenerational national policies which address the singular needs of our aging boomer women.

As GGPI’s Chair and Founder Paul Hodge has cautioned in his publications and his presentations to, among others, the White House, the Aspen Institute, the World Economic Forum and recently at Oxford University:

“While many boomer women will have secure retirement futures, many of them will not because of diverse and interrelated demographic, social, cultural, political and economic societal factors. Many of the 40 million boomer women will face uncertain financial, heath-care housing and retirement futures because of gender-biased public and private sector policies.

Over 30 million boomer women are faced with the reality that a lot of the time-honored underpinnings for their financial and retirement security are disappearing. In addition to being gender-biased, boomer women cannot rely on the Social Security system to support them in their elder years. Critical private sector pension and health care employee benefits are being defaulted on, slashed or reduced.

Fueled by globalization and other macro-economic events, downward pressures on income levels are increasing and “living wage” employment opportunities for a significant number of aging boomer women and older women in general are diminishing. National public and private policies are shifting financial responsibility to individual citizens.

More than prior generations of women, boomer women will deal with unique risk factors affecting their financial and retirement futures such as increased life spans, marital instability, single parenting, care giving of aging relatives, inadequate housing and poor health/disabilities.

In addition to these factors, many boomer women still work in conditions where there are widespread salary inequities, age and sex discrimination, and inadequate health insurance coverage.

Now is the time for our nation to recognize the singular needs of women as they age and to develop and implement public and private policies which target and address this demographic reality. We must eliminate the “glass ceiling” and age/gender discrimination in the work place.

We must guarantee our nation’s baby boomer women and women of all ages an equal chance for capital accumulation, growth and retention in their working years and an abundant, secure and dignified quality of life in their increasingly vulnerable elder years.”

In addition to our “first-of-its-kind” study Baby Boomer Women: Secure Futures or Not?, we invite visitors to our website to register at our Contact Center so that they may be notified of upcoming GGPI Women’s Abundance Leadership Initiative’s “cutting edge” programs, events and publications on boomer women’s financial, health care, housing and retirement policy issues.

For more information, please contact us at (617) 491-1171 or email us at genpolicy@genpolicy.com