Women over 50 have been most affected by the economic downturn, with increasing numbers giving up on saving for retirement altogether.

Figures from the Scottish Widows UK Pensions Report, published today, reveal that the gender gap between male and female pension savers has increased since 2008, with 59 per cent of men on track for a comfortable retirement, compared with just 47 per cent of women.

Although the amount of people saving adequately for their pension pots rose to 54 per cent – up 6 per cent from the lows of 2006 – the over 50s are most likely to have cut their savings in the last year.

Indeed, the number of women aged 50 and over who said they are not saving at all for retirement has increased from 14 per cent to 22 per cent.

Scottish Widows said that respondents overwhelmingly blamed the recession for affecting their retirement savings – over a third stated that the uncertain job market and shaky economic outlook was preventing them from saving more.

Moreover, despite increased contributions to employer-sponsored defined contribution (DC) schemes, around a fifth of the overall sample did not save at all, and only 40 per cent believed that a company pension scheme would provide an adequate standard of living in retirement.

Ian Naismith, head of pensions market development at Scottish Widows, said: “There is still more that needs to be done from both the Government and the industry to better encourage pensions savings for the long term, particularly in the current economic environment.”

The self-employed are also suffering in the pensions divide – a third of respondents said they were not saving at all.

Naismith said: “We have consistently seen groups such as women and the self-employed falling behind when it comes to pensions savings. The impact of the economic downturn is likely to make these groups even more vulnerable when saving for retirement and there needs to be more done to better encourage everyone to save for the future.

“While people may be worried about their current financial situation they need to make sure they continue saving for the future so they can enjoy their retirement. We believe those that are able to save should be saving 12 per cent of their main income, and many people are still falling far short of this figure.”

The Scottish Widows analysis found that a man working in the public sector would be most likely to save adequately for retirement, a statistic that comes in the wake of yesterday’s paper from the British-North American Committee, which estimated the true cost of pensions for all current public sector workers at £1.2 trillion. This is equivalent to 85 per cent of Britain’s GDP and worth £20,000 for every man, woman and child in Britain.

About 6.4 million British workers, or about 25 per cent of the workforce, are members of public sector pension schemes.

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