I received this response from Nancy L. Sander of Counseling-Based Estate Planning on a comment I recently posted on her article about women and estate planning:

Thank you for commenting on my article. Another story from my personal experience – when IRAs were first introduced in the 70's I was a homemaker.  I could only put aside $1,250.00 per year.  The $2,500.00 had to be split between Husband and Wife.  Homemakers are much devalued in society even though they are tackling the toughest job – preparing their children for the world.

As my article and your website point out, women are in and out of the workplace because of family responsibilities.  This certainly remains true today, and today's mothers are under pressure to earn money for their families as well as their household responsibilities. 

Often they later find themselves divorced through no fault of their own, and totally lacking adequate retirement funds.  This all needs to be considered when planning their estates.