Retirement Savings Hit an All-time Low

- ‘Women are falling almost £30,000 behind men in retirement savings

- Over a quarter of women are now not saving anything for retirement

- Women are repaying short-term debt rather than saving for retirement.’

reports ‘Scottish Widows’.

Research undertaken by ‘Scottish Widows’ suggests that women continue to be affected disproportionately by the economic downturn compared to men. Scottish Widows investigated the amount that men and women were saving for their retirement.  In its latest Women and Pensions report ‘Mind the Expectation Gap’ (November 2012), Scottish Widows report women saving, on average, £776 per year less than men (an increase of over 10% in the gender gap savings compared to a year ago).

The research also reports that 50% of women feel ‘less well off’ than they did 12 months ago in contrast to 45% of men. Whilst 42% of women and 49% of men were found to be saving adequately for their retirement, 26% of women and 19% of men were found not to be saving anything at all.

Whilst the need to save or save more was recognised, the report found that priority was being given to mortgage repayments’, household bills and debt payment/management over saving.  For women this was found to be further affected by part-time working, career breaks or the role as carer.

On a positive note, the report suggests that with auto-enrolment into pensions millions more will be saving for retirement.

View the report in full:    http://www.scottishwidows.co.uk/documents/generic/2012_women_and_pensions_report.pdf