Women expect to have nearly £100,000 less in pension savings than men when they reach retirement age, according to research from Brewin Dolphin.

Female respondents predicted they’d have an average of £168,006 when they retire, compared to the average of £255,328 predicted by male respondents.

The Brewin Dolphin Family Wealth Report found that 25 per cent of women said that this was because they did not start saving for retirement early enough.

Furthermore, the research revealed that, on average, women save 9.4 per cent of their net income compared to 11.4 per cent of men, with 22 per cent of women thinking that they were saving enough compared to 33 per cent of men.

It also discovered that female respondents were less likely to know what to do with their pensions, with 38 per cent saying they were unsure, while only 32 per cent of men said they were unsure.

Twenty-one per cent of male respondents said that they were planning to withdraw it their savings as a lump sum, compared to 13 per cent of women, while only 13 per cent of men expected to rely on their state pension in retirement, compared to 21 per cent of women.

Brewin Dolphin investment manager, Wayne Berry warned against being “sucked into stereotypes” when it comes to investment differences between the genders.

He said: “Whilst our research shows that women are not putting aside as much as men, either for their future or their retirement, we can also see that they are not as confident when thinking about what they want to do with their pension pots.

“However, it is easy to get sucked into stereotypes about the differences between men and women when investing.

“We know that attitudes to finance are driven as much by social and demographic factors like education, employment status and financial circumstances as they are by gender. We know, too, that many more women are primary carers with part-time roles and less income to invest.”

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