Women’s confidence in their ability to plan for retirement hasreached a three-year high, with 69 percent of women rating theirconfidence level as good or very good. In addition, for the firsttime in three years, women’s confidence is on par with men’s (71percent of men rate their confidence as good or very good).

A new survey, commissioned by online investing firm Scottrade, Inc., shows that women’ssavings tactics differ from men’s. More women are finding ways toincrease their cash flow during retirement. Forty percent of womenhave structured their portfolios to include investments that willgenerate income during retirement, compared to 30 percent of men.And just over half (51 percent) of women say that generating incomeduring retirement is more important to them now than it was oneyear ago.

In addition, more women have started to save for retirement thanmen (79 percent of women vs. 74 percent of men), and women are morelikely to feel that they are saving enough for retirement (22percent of women vs. 16 percent of men).

“TIME magazine recently heralded the arrival of the‘Sheconomy,’ noting that women now make up almost half of theworkforce,” said

Kim Wells, chief marketing officer at Scottrade. “Our surveyfindings support the idea of women’s increasing empowerment, andthat women are feeling more secure about managing their retirementinvestments.”

Women’s attitudes toward spending may be contributing to theirpositive retirement planning and saving momentum. While more than aquarter (28 percent) of men are concerned about controlling theirurge to spend, only 17 percent of women share that concern – andthat number is down from 27 percent of women in 2009.

Further, women are more likely to take proactive steps toaddress financial concerns (94 percent of women vs. 88 percent ofmen). Although the top five actions taken to reduce financialstress were the same for both genders, considerably more women aretaking those actions.