WOMEN are risking retirement poverty by relying on their partner's pension to see them through their old age, research warned today.

Around 45 per cent of women aged over 50 say their main income once they stop work will come from their partner's pension - but by the time they retire one in seven of them will be divorced.

Many women who divorced before new pension sharing rules were introduced in December 2000 are not entitled to a share of their husband's pension, warns insurer Norwich Union.

At the same time, women often opt to keep the family home, rather than have a slice of their husband's retirement provision.

Just four per cent of divorced women aged over 50 had received a share of their ex-husband's pension.

"Women are increasingly becoming the poorer sex when it comes to retirement and it's worrying to see this problem compounded due to rising divorce rates amongst the over-50s," said Nigel Spencer, head of marketing for Norwich Union equity release.

"Many women have sacrificed careers, and therefore their own pension, to raise their family and as a result, are being unfairly punished."

Women faced a "double whammy" in retirement of having lower pension provision, combined with higher life expectancy than men, he added.

A poll from insurer Prudential showed that more than a third of pensioners are struggling to fund the retirement they wanted.

Three-quarters of people aged over 55 said they still had ambitions they had yet to achieve, but 42 per cent admitted they would probably never realise them.

Just over a third of people blamed this on a lack of money.

The Pensions Ombudsman has hit out at the government for failing to provide the resources he needed to keep up with a record number of pensions complaints.

Ombudsman David Laverick said he had received a record 3,930 complaints during the year to the end of March.

But despite increasing the number of cases he ruled on by more than 20 per cent, he ended the year with 1,700 outstanding cases, compared with 1,623 at the start.

Mr Laverick said: "There is some truth in the adage that justice delayed is justice denied."

Some 35 per cent of cases were processed within six months but 45 per cent took more than 12 months.