The way women approach life can affect how they dofinancially—both during their working years and in retirement.

And a new series of white papers from Bank of America MerrillLynch is highlighting the challenges presented by those differentlife paths. The first, “Women and Life-Defining Financial Decisions,”focuses on how different aspects of women’s lives can have animpact on their financial security long term.

Related: How much behind are milllennial women insaving for retirement?

Among those aspects are differences due to gender—careerearnings, lifespans and parenting situations all affect womendifferently than men—career decisions, such as changing jobs ortaking time off to be a caregiver, which can have an outsize effecton women’s retirement security; and relationships and family, inwhich a decision made by one partner will influence the otherpartner’s financial health, as well as that of the wholefamily.

Other matters, such as homeownership, debt, caregiving andretirement issues unique to women are also explored.

Related: Checklist for retirement: 6 questionsmarried women must ask

The white paper also offers tips for ways to increase financialsecurity, including such typical suggestions as to start savingearly, before one's late 20s, ideally; starting an IRA if one'semployer doesn't offer a retirement plan; considering the financialeffects of whether to take on a caregiver role; and not taking oncredit card debt.

It’s already pretty well known that women will need more moneyin retirement than men, since they live longer, usually makesubstantially less, and are more likely to need extended healthcare in their senior years—with no one around to care for them.

Yet lower earnings for women not only amount to an averageshortfall of $300,000, meaning their pension benefits and/or 401(k)balances are lower than men’s, those benefits mean that women’smedian retirement income is only 58 percent that of men’s.

Women are also far more likely to be single parents strugglingto get by; of approximately 12 million single-parent families, morethan 80 percent are headed by single mothers. That puts retirementsavings pretty low on the priority list for women alreadystruggling to meet expenses.

And at the other end of life, only 19 percent of women over theage of 85 are likely to have a living spouse—meaning that if theyneed care, they’ll have to pay for the caregiver.

On the other hand, men can usually count on their wives to serveas caregivers for at least part of the time that such care isneeded.