Women told to save themselves from pension pain
Thursday, 10 August 2006 12:00
Women need to save for their own retirement to avoid poverty in retirement, ministers have said today.
Just one woman in three has a private pension, significantly less than the proportion of men saving, and just three women in ten retire on a full state pension (30 per cent) - compared with more than eight out of ten men (85 per cent).
Additionally, of the 38 per cent of women that are saving for their own retirement, women save far less each month than men.
While the government has said it will try and tackle the inequality in the state pensions, this will not be enough unless more women also start saving for themselves.
"Women who are not saving could see the independence they currently enjoy replaced with financial dependence on the state in retirement," said minister for women Meg Munn.
"This is a situation most will not want to find themselves in and must be addressed."
Pension reform minister James Purnell added: "Half of all women stop saving for retirement when they have children.
"Our reforms recognise this caring role with a new contributory principle - making the state pension system fairer for women and carers who take time away from employment to raise children or look after others."
However, he pointed out that most people would like to have more money in retirement than simply the state allowance.
"The worrying reality is that if women don't make their own saving a priority, they could find themselves worse off in retirement than they expect," Mr Purnell said.
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