URBAN INSTITUTE
CAN BOOMER WOMEN AFFORD TO RETIRE?
February 7, 2012
Barbara Bovbjerg is the managing director for education, workforce, and income security
issues at the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO). She oversees evaluations of
elementary and secondary education, workforce and employment, and aging and retirement
income policies. Previously, she was the director for retirement income security. Before joining
the GAO, she led the citywide analysis unit of the District of Columbia’s Budget Office and
analyzed state and local government finance issues at the Urban Institute.
Mary Beth Franklin (moderator) is a contributing editor for InvestmentNews. She writes the
“Focus on Retirement” column and her “Retirement 2.0” blog for the magazine’s digital edition.
Franklin cohosts RLTV’s The Advisors program on retirement living and is a frequent guest on
public television’s WealthTrack. Previously, she was a senior editor of Kiplinger's Personal
Finance magazine and editor of its annual Retirement Planning Guide. Before joining
Kiplinger’s in 1998, Franklin was a syndicated columnist specializing in personal finance and
health issues for older Americans.
Heidi Hartmann is the president of the Institute for Women’s Policy Research, an organization
she formed in 1987. She is also a research professor at George Washington University.
Previously, Hartmann taught at Rutgers University and the New School for Social Research and
worked at the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights and the National Research Council, where she
was associate executive director of the Commission on Behavioral and Social Sciences and
Education. In 1994, she received a MacArthur Fellowship for her work on women and
economics.
Richard Johnson is a senior fellow and the director of the Program on Retirement Policy at the
Urban Institute, where he specializes in health and income security at older ages. He has studied
the demand for private long-term care insurance, the impact of elder-care responsibilities on
employment and earnings, and the effect of family care on nursing home entry. His current
projects include forecasting seniors’ out-of-pocket medical spending and their need for home
care and nursing home stays.
Jack VanDerhei is the research director of the Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI),
where he directs the Defined Contribution and Participant Behavior Research Program and the
Retirement Security Research Program. He has been with EBRI since 1988. VanDerhei has more
than 100 publications devoted to employee benefits and insurance. His research focuses on the
financial aspects of private defined-benefit and defined-contribution retirement plans.