When it comes to retirement saving, women start out behind and finish up that way.

That’s according to the annual Global Investor Pulse Survey from BlackRock, which found that fewer women (53 percent) than men (65 percent) have started saving for retirement.

They don’t catch up, either, and have accumulated less than half as much toward their golden years as men have — just $34,900, compared with men’s $76,800.

Women play it safe, too, unlike men, who are willing to take a gamble on riskier investments for bigger returns.

Nearly half of men (45 percent) are willing to chase returns, while only 28 percent of women are inclined to do so.

Not only that, but women tend to keep more of their total investment in cash: 68 percent compared with men’s 59 percent.

Women who lose time in the workplace while they care for children also lose a lot of ground in retirement saving.

The survey indicated that only about half of women between the ages of 25 and 44 are working full-time. More than 75 percent of men in that age range, on the other hand, are full-time employees.

And that lost time adds up. Even though middle-aged and older women are saving for retirement in a proportion close to that of men, they’ve lost more than they can make up in the time they have left.

Women between the ages of 55 and 64 who have retirement savings have just a median of $81,300 compared with comparably aged men, who have a median of $118,400.

When you remember that women live longer than men, and could have to depend on retirement savings for up to 10 years longer than men, that hurts.

Millennials are saving more and better, with millennial women twice as likely as boomer females to describe themselves as active investors (31 percent compared with 15 percent). They’re also almost twice as likely, at 41 percent to 22 percent, as boomer women to be willing to chance risky investments in the hope of a big payoff.

But they don’t necessarily enjoy it; just 36 percent of millennial women say that it’s an activity they like, while 70 percent of millennial men get a kick out of managing investments.

Instant Insights /

Retirement savings &lsquo;gender gap&rsquo; puts women far behind

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Retirement savings ‘gender gap’ puts women far behind