Money Talks: I took a career break and now I'm worried about my pension 

What impact can taking some time away from employment have on your retirement fund and what can you do about it?

Women have to prepare more financially for their retirement than men, says Carol Brick

I am 45 and am a senior marketing executive in a multinational company. I was lucky enough to be able to take five years away from the workplace to care for my three children and have recently returned to my full-time role. Having reviewed my accumulated employee pension benefits, I am now very worried about the effect my absence has had on my retirement funding and am afraid that I will now have to keep working until age 65 when I had always planned to stop at 60. I have only ever contributed the minimum amount of 5% - Can you advise please?

It is a fact that women need to prepare more financially, for retirement than men for a number of reasons. Women can earn less even in the same roles as their male counterparts. For example in circumstances like your case, they may take career breaks to look after either young children or elderly relatives never mind the fact that they also live longer than men. So, women need to build a larger retirement fund from potentially fewer earnings and this can certainly present a challenge.