A women's rights charity which fears there could be high rates of retirement poverty for women will investigate why women save less compared to men on the same income.

The Fawcett Society will conduct in-depth research as it as it seeks to change the savings behaviour of women early on in their working life. It is teaming up with Scottish Widows to carry out the work.

The research will focus on women aged 25-39 with an annual income of £24,000-£40,000. The findings will be published this spring.

Sam Smethers, chief executive at The Fawcett Society, said: “We have known for a long time that the pay gap becomes a pensions gap and as a result women are likely to have smaller pension pots than men. But we are also interested as to why women save less compared to men on the same income.

“Dramatic changes to pensions have left many people confused as to how much they should be saving and when. In order to prevent high rates of poverty amongst women in retirement, it is vital to understand and change savings behaviour in women early on in their working life, where it pays for them to do so.

“This research will provide new evidence and policy suggestions on how to ensure women start saving sooner and save more for their retirement.”

Every year since 2004, Scottish Widows has researched the disparity in the amounts saved by men and women, which it said remains ‘striking’.

The most recent report revealed that while 26% of women and 30% of men in their 20s said they were preparing adequately or more than adequately for retirement, this gap widens significantly in their 30s. By this point, 48% of men believed they were saving adequately, compared with just 31% of women.

Jackie Leiper, retirement expert at Scottish Widows, said: “When it comes to attitudes towards retirement saving, young men and women appear to be almost on a par, yet our research has identified an alarming divergence in the 30s which needs to be addressed.

"We hope that by supporting this Fawcett Society research we will gain a deeper understanding of the specific barriers and challenges that women face in preparing for later life, and help shape policy decisions to break these down in the future.”