Women worry more than men in regards to saving and have lowerconfidence in investment decisions than men, a new surveyfinds.  MassMutual's Retirement Services Divisionconducted an online survey between Nov. 15, 2010 and Jan. 15, 2011,of 1,517 participants in retirement plans on the MassMutualplatform.

It found that men believe the stock market will improve in thenext year at a ratio twice that of women. Women were significantlyless confident in making their own investment decisions (25.9percent) compared to men (44.1 percent). At the same time lastyear, the percentages were 32.8 percent for women and 47.8 percentfor men. Men also enjoy learning about investments (71.7 percent)more than do women (54.4 percent), with about half of womenresponding that they prefer to spend as little time as possible oninvestment decisions.

Overall, only 37.3 percent of participants are confident inmaking their own investment decisions, which dropped from 42.5percent last year. The survey indicates there is more anxiety abouthaving adequate savings to retire. Overall, 66.6 percent say theyare concerned they won't have enough saved for retirement with bothmen and women saying they are becoming more conservative in termsof their investing behavior.

In the past year, 61.7 percent became more conservative comparedto 38.3 percent who became more aggressive. About 40 percent of allparticipants said being able to retire was their greatest concern.Managing debt is the greatest financial concern for participantsunder age 40, while being able to retire is by far the greatestconcern for people 40 years old or above.

“Being able to retire is the greatest overall concern amongdefined contribution plan participants by a large margin—almost twoand a half times the concern about healthcare costs, and muchhigher than job security and managing debt,” says Elaine Sarsynski,executive vice president of MassMutual's Retirement Servicesdivision and chairman and CEO of MassMutual International.

“In addition, 57.1 percent of participants are likely to seekhelp from a financial planning advisor in the next 12 months, withmany preferring the assistance of the retirement plan advisorrepresenting the plan.”