Under the terms of the Protection of Employees (Part-Time Work) Act 2001, part-time workers, 80 per cent of whom are women, should not be treated any less favourably than full-time employees when it comes to access to occupational schemes.

Since last year, an employer's contribution to a pension can be preserved to retirement after just two years of membership, rather than five years, which could favour people with a broken pattern of employment.

Increases in the ceilings on additional voluntary contributions (AVCs) have helped late starters, allowing women who join pension schemes when they re-enter the workforce to boost their pension in a relatively short time.

Personal Retirement Savings Accounts (PRSAs) provide a way for people outside paid employment, including homemakers and people on career breaks, to save for retirement in a flexible manner and at lower cost than under old-style personal pensions.

The bad news:

Women earn less than men - 16 per cent less on an hourly basis - and are almost three times as likely to be earning the minimum wage as men, according to ESRI studies.

This means employers calculating pension benefits under a defined-benefit scheme often base it on both a lower final salary and a shorter period of service.

A 2002 CSO survey showed that women are less likely to make AVCs to occupational pensions - 9.4 per cent do so, compared to 13 per cent of men.

This is despite the fact that women who have taken career breaks should in fact be putting aside more to make up for their shorter service.

'Women live longer than men. Good news in every other way, perhaps, but it means personal pension holders or members of defined-contribution schemes who buy an annuity on retirement receive a lower rate of pension from insurers.

This is because the insurer estimates that they will have to pay the annual income - or pension - to a woman for a longer time than they would for a man.