[UK] Women in retirement poverty warning

From The Scotsman

Millions of women are facing retirement poverty because they are relying on their husbands' pension, a report has warned.

Only three out of 10 women of working age are currently saving towards their retirement, compared with more than half of men, while half of women who were saving stop doing so when they have children.

If women save the same proportion of their full-time income as men, they will end up putting away only 50p for every £1 saved by men because of the lower salaries they earn and the career breaks they take, according to a Scottish Widows survey.

Overall women are likely to spend only two-thirds the number of years in full-time employment as men as a result of taking career breaks to look after children and elderly relatives.

The group estimates that more than six million women could be financially dependent on their husbands during retirement, but with around half of marriages ending in divorce, millions of women could find themselves facing retirement without a spouse to support them.

In the report, Baroness Hollis of Heigham said: "Too many women believe, often wrongly, that their partner will provide for them. They believe too that the children's need for trainers today takes precedence over some undefined needs 30 years on, that it is selfish to squirrel money away today that is needed by the family.

"They are baffled, along with most people, by the complexity of pension structures, and they reassure themselves that if the man in their life won't provide, then the State will."

Ian Naismith, head of pension market development at Scottish Widows, said: "Given the current debate on the pensions' savings gap, it seems many people are heading towards financial hardship in retirement.

"Furthermore, everything we know about current trends in pensioner poverty points towards particular hardship for women.

"The fact that women have a multitude of roles throughout their adult lives - some of which are likely to take them outside paid employment - is not at present fairly reflected in how we, as a nation, expect the individual to go about building pension assets."