The gender gap applies
to funeral plans too!

Men fear losing their libido, while women fear losing their looks

The international best seller ‘Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus’ was right, well at least when it comes to attitudes towards ageing.

New research – carried out independently by Mintel as part of Sun Life Direct’s fifth annual Cost of Dying Report into end-of-life and funeral plans - has found that 45% of women are more concerned about the consequences of death compared to 35% of men. And, strange though it may seem, the starkest illustration of the gender divide lies in people’s libido. One in three men expressed anxiety about a dwindling libido in old age, which is almost three times more than the number of women who share the same concern.

In fact, after fears associated with health and poverty in old age, libido is the dominant concern for men; the female equivalent is the loss of looks!

Women often live longer

On a more practical level, women outnumber men when indicating that arrangements for older age were ‘very important’. Half of all women, compared to 39% of men, are concerned about suffering poverty in old age and so place greater importance on arrangements to prepare for things like physical and mental illness, where to live, Wills, care costs, and funeral costs.

And not without good reason. Women often live longer and are less likely to have built up an occupational pension, which means they’re more vulnerable to financial distress if their male partner dies before them. The result is that poverty and loneliness are very real fears for women in old age, as Dr Kate Woodthorpe, co-author of the report and a lecturer in Sociology at the University of Bath says:

“While opportunities for work have expanded significantly for women in the last three decades, women are still often responsible for the majority of domestic activities, including family decision making. This can be seen in the Sun Life Direct ‘Cost of Dying’ report, finding a marked ambivalence on the part of men towards end of life arrangements. ‘Funeral payments’ and ‘where to live in old age’ are both issues for which men are more reliant on family than women, therefore often leaving women having to bear the concern and the consequences.”

Male or female it is important to prepare for the future. To help you, why not read our article Starting to think about death and your funeral?

Source: Mintel Consumer Research Study, July 2011