Women in the US appear to find it much more difficult to start saving early much to the detriment of their retirement, with only a quarter starting saving from their 20s.
That is the conclusion from the Op4G and MoneyRates.com research, which found 30 per cent of American men start saving in their 20s compared to 25 per cent of women.
This means only 57 per cent of women can look forward to retiring by age 70, compared with 78 per cent of men.
"Women may have more trouble saving because they earn less on average, and this creates the additional burden of greater retirement uncertainty," senior financial analyst for MoneyRates.com Richard Barrington said.
Alarmingly, the research, which polled more than 1900 US adults aged 25 or older, found 29 per cent of the American respondents who reached 60 have no retirement savings, while 29 per cent of those aged 40 and 30 per cent of those aged 50 also have no savings.
"Never mind retiring by age 60 — only 52.5 per cent of those who put off saving until their 50s expect to be able to retire by the time they reach 70," Barrington said.
"Perhaps even more ominous, more than a quarter of these late starters did not know if or when they would be able to retire."
