Women victims of the pension gender gap as average female retirement income sinks to five year low The average woman expects to get just £11,750 in pension payments But male pensioners will be better off getting an average of £18,250 a year Women who retire this year will typically be forced to survive on an annual income which is a third lower than the average man's income, a shocking report warns today. It highlights the nightmare facing a generation of women who are going to suffer a penny-pinching, rather than comfortable, retirement despite a lifetime of hard work. More than 8,500 adults, including 1,000 who will retire this year, were asked how much money they expect to get when they stop work. While a man expects to get an average of £18,250 a year, the average woman expects to get just £11,750. Worrying: Women who retire this year will typically be forced to survive on an annual income which is a third lower than the average man¿s income, a shocking report warns today This is a "pension gender gap" of £6,500, which would pay for a long list of luxuries from foreign holidays to a new bathroom, a new wardrobe of clothes or weekly trips to a restaurant. The report, from the insurance giant Prudential, warns the average woman's retirement income has sunk to the lowest level for five years. In 2009, it was as high as £13,700, according to the Prudential, which conducts the report every year into the state of the nation's retirement plans. Just a third of women "believe they will have enough income to enjoy a comfortable retirement," according to the report. To make matters worse, the report includes all types of income that a woman expects to get when she retires from a State pension to any income from a private pension. But this means it also includes any income that women expect to get from continuing to work, such as a part-time job, with some planning to work into their 70s. Official figures, from the Office for National Statistics, show 111,000 women are currently working at the age of 70 and over. The ballooning number of older workers highlights a social revolution in Britain with people forced to work at an age when many assume they would have stopped years ago. This is largely being fuelled by the gradual increase in women's State pension age from 60 to 67 by 2028. Better off: Male pensioners won't have as much to worry about as their pension income will be higher Stan Russell, a retirement expert at Prudential, said the "pension gender gap" remains "stubbornly wide." Millions of women do not even qualify for the full basic State pension, currently £107.45 a week, and only get a fraction of this amount. Yesterday the Department for Work and Pensions said 2.8million women get a State pension of under £80 a week, compared to only 474,000 men. They also lose out on the State second pension, with men typically getting an extra £38 per week while women get an average of only £21 per week. Nightmare: A generation of women are going to suffer a penny-pinching, rather than comfortable, retirement despite a lifetime of hard work Many women are financially penalised for bringing up their children, while others who do work have such low-paid jobs that they do not get a pension. Other women work for small firms which do not offer a pension to their staff, although new rules, currently being rolled out, are forcing bosses to pay into a pension for their workforce for the first time. Mel Duffield, head of research at the National Association of Pension Funds, said: "The pensions gender gap is a serious issue. Women often take career breaks or work part-time to raise children or care for relatives. This can leave them on lower earnings and with broken work patterns, severely impacting on the pensions they build. Dr Ros Altmann, a former Government policy adviser and independent economist, said: "It just shows the impact that women's lives have on their earning power. Many women have an interrupted working pattern which does hamper them in the jobs market. The seniority of the jobs that they can achieve in later life is poor because they have been out of the jobs market for very valid reasons, such as caring for their children. In a bid to end the women's pensions crisis, the Government is dramatically changing the complicated State pensions system to a new flat-rate pension, typically worth £144 a week. Steve Webb, the Pensions Minister, said: "For too long, women have been second class citizens in retirement. But, women will be the main beneficiaries of our new flat rate state pension when it is introduced in 2016.