Fidelity’s 2026 Retirement Study Finds Men Are 18 Points More Confident Than Women About Retiring on Their Terms

Fidelity's 2026 Retirement Study captures a assurance spread that arrives years earlier immoderate relationship connection confirms it. Men study 81% assurance successful retiring connected their ain terms, portion women study 63%. This 18-percentage-point spread tracks a acceptable of structural conditions that compound implicit a moving beingness and past compound again successful retirement.

This infographic illustrates the 18-point status assurance spread betwixt men and women, detailing cardinal factors specified arsenic declining savings rates, reliance connected Social Security, and an accusation deficit.

The income broadside of the equation explains portion of the spread with mean hourly net reached $37.53 successful May 2026, up from $36.28 a twelvemonth earlier, but that header fig masks the persistent net differential betwixt men and women that determines beingness contributions to 401(k)s, IRAs, and Social Security. A wage spread measured successful azygous digits per hr becomes a six-figure spread implicit a 40-year career, and widens further erstwhile vocation interruptions for caregiving trim some the fig of publication years and the consequent wage trajectory.

The savings situation is not helping, arsenic the idiosyncratic savings complaint fell from 6.2% successful the archetypal 4th of 2024 to 3.7% successful the archetypal 4th of 2026, adjacent arsenic per capita disposable income roseate to $68,359. Households are spending a larger stock of their earnings, leaving little country for status contributions. Social Security transfers totaled $1.6 trillion successful the archetypal 4th of 2026, with Medicare adding different $1.3 trillion, underscoring however cardinal these programs already are to household income.

That dependence connected Social Security falls unevenly crossed groups. Among Boomers, 76% mention Social Security arsenic a apical root of status income. Meanwhile, younger generations thin astir heavy connected workplace plans, with 58% of Gen X, 48% of Millennials, and 44% of Gen Z. Women, who thin to unrecorded longer and person little beingness earnings, receive smaller Social Security checks for much years. The aforesaid payment that anchors a antheral retiree's program whitethorn request to agelong crossed galore much years for a pistillate retiree, and the dollar magnitude itself is typically smaller to statesman with.