Women are more likely to regret their retirement decisions than men and feel less confident about their future, new research from 7IM has revealed.
In a survey of 505 fully or semi-retired UK adults aged 55 and over, 38% of women expressed regrets about their retirement decisions compared to just 26% of men.
Women were also shown to have lower confidence in their pension savings, with just over a third (36%) feeling very confident or extremely confident that their savings would allow them to maintain a comfortable lifestyle in retirement compared to more than half (52%) of men.
According to 7IM, a key reason for the stark disparity in confidence could be contrasting views between men and women on the different retirement options available to them. More than a third (36%) of women felt that either there was not enough choice when it came to finding the right retirement solution or were unsure what their options were, versus 21% of men who felt the same.
Verona Kenny, managing director, intermediary at 7IM, said the industry should give “serious thought” as to why a difference between men and women exists.
Kenny said: “As an industry, we have failed clients of both genders by not innovating in the at- and in-retirement space, but clearly women are feeling the lack of innovation and support more sharply than men.
“The same ingenuity that has been successfully applied to accumulation now urgently needs to be focused on the retirement phase. I sincerely hope the recent announcement that there is to be a thematic review of retirement income advice provides the impetus our industry needs to finally get it together to do that.
“We need to innovate and provide robust, flexible retirement income solutions along with the guarantees retirees are crying out for. No one provider can be all things to all people, so we need to work together to ensure advisers have the right tools at their disposal when advising their clients at- and in-retirement. Continuing to fail advisers and their clients by not innovating in this area is simply not an option.”
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