Nearly 50 percent of California workers will retire in or near poverty, according to a study by the University of California, Berkeley's Center for Labor Research and Education.

Californians have less access to employer retirement options, which makes their situation worse than the rest of the nation, according to "California Workers' Retirement Prospects."

The report found that California retirees rely predominantly on Social Security income, "a trend that could worsen as future workers retire without employer-sponsored benefits," the report said. Social Security provides 79.1 percent of income for the bottom 25 percent of retirees and 70.3 percent for the middle 50 percent, the report found. Employer-sponsored pensions made up about 15.5 percent of retirement income for the middle 50 percent of workers. Two-thirds of retirees in poverty are women.