What went wrong with so many women�s pensions � and can it be fixed? Jennifer Cunningham hears a working mother�s story.

At the age of 52, Carolynn Cruickshank-Gray is pacing her work commitments carefully so that she doesn't burn out in the next 15 years. She will be among the first group of women - those born after April 6, 1955 - who will have to work until the age of 65 before becoming eligible for a state pension. In fact, she expects to be working well beyond the age of 65 to make ends meet.

The only private pension provision she has is a total of about £5000 in the pension funds of two small companies where she worked for a couple of years. That is no comfort: quite the opposite. "My big fear is that if I should be on my own in my old age, this tiny pension will have the effect of taking me just above benefit levels," she says from her home in Lochgelly, which is the base for her contract work.

For anyone under 50, the subject of pensions is a turn-off. For mothers juggling childcare and the family budget, pension provision is about as relevant as space travel. And that sums up the nature of the problem which is now affecting thousands of women in this country. Today, 95% of men retire with a full basic state pension. For women, it's just 25%.

The typical working pattern of many of the women who are now pensioners was to take time out from the workforce to raise their families, often working part-time when their children were older, followed by a few years of full-time work once their children had grown up. That fitted a system of contributory pensions based on marriage which lasted into old age, in which the husband's National Insurance contributions ensured a pension designed to provide for two and a widow's pension if he died first. That was reinforced by government and employers encouraging married women who worked to pay a smaller contribution. Social changes since then, most obviously the increase in divorce and longer lifespans, have blown a hole in this arrangement - which has left many older women in poverty.

Cruickshank-Gray's tale is slightly different, but typical of a younger generation of women who have been both full-time mothers and full-time workers, but are still in danger of losing out.

She left school at 16, got married and had a family at 20, and stayed at home to look after her two boys before taking part-time jobs in shops and bars which allowed her to combine work with childcare.

"I did not think about National Insurance contributions; it was about surviving," she says now. Later, after she had a daughter in her 30s, she registered for Home Responsibilities Protection, which since 1978 has specifically protected the pension rights of carers. Her marriage ended and she continued to fit work round caring for children: "My concern was paying the mortgage and the bills, and making sure the children were fed and clothed rather than worrying about what life was going to be like in my 60s."

Keen to improve her employment prospects, she became a mature student at the age of 38, studying Scottish history at St Andrews University, followed by a qualification in applied computing. She survived during her studies by working in the evenings and during holidays as an office administrator for a small local cleaning business. "Because they were a family-run company, they were very flexible, but they could not afford to pay for pensions," she says.

"I started full-time work nine years ago at the age of 44, but as a project manager on short-term contracts mainly for charities and voluntary organisations which usually can't afford to pay NI contributions. My lack of pension provision could be seen as my own fault, but now that I have qualifications, it is important to me to do jobs that I regard as worthwhile. "

She sold the family flat to her daughter and bought a pub, with a flat above it where she lives with her new husband, who gave up his job to become the bar manager. "When I bought the pub I became self-employed, but in our first year of trading it made a loss, so I have exemption from National Insurance contributions for three years. It is in a fairly run-down area and after the smoking ban, trade dropped off and it is now closed. I plan to convert it into two flats, which I can sell to clear our various costs so that we can live mortgage-free and have the opportunity to put away some savings," she says.

She hopes that will allow her to start tackling the problem of providing for her old age. Even with the change in rules which will see both men and women qualify for the full rate of state pension after 30 years of contributions instead of the previous requirement of 39, Cruickshank-Gray will not qualify.

Like many women of her age and older, she expected to be able to claim a pension based on the contributions her husband made during the years when her main occupation was looking after the children. "When we divorced, I made no claim for pension rights, because I did not know anything about that. There are a lot of women who don't know what they are going to get in the way of a pension. Calculating their entitlement is such a minefield, they won't know until they actually make a claim," she says.

Although Cruickshank-Gray's husband now works for the local council and contributes to a final salary scheme, the contributions he makes in his remaining years of work will not provide a large pension. She says: "I have done everything I could to bring up my family and educate myself, but I am still going to be caught with no pension."

Her caring role continues in looking after her grandchildren during school holidays, but also providing a home for a young man with autism. "Because I expect to continue working after the age of 65, I think it's important not to do high pressure work full-time, but to balance different projects. If a wonderful job came up I would take it, but a full-time job with a pension is more likely to be less fulfilling," she explains.

She will not be alone in extending her working life. Growing numbers of final-salary pension schemes are failing to meet their promises as return on investment is lower than predicted, while their beneficiaries live longer in retirement. Pensioners whose schemes have collapsed have taken to public demonstrations and grey power is flexing its muscles.

Evidence that they are hitting the target came earlier this month when the House of Lords passed an amendment to the Pensions Bill. If accepted by the Commons, it will allow people with missing National Insurance contributions to make good up to nine years of payments at any point in their working life. The significance of this is that it will allow people who have been out of the workforce - notably carers - to qualify for a full pension. This was followed by an announcement by the Prime Minister last week of moves to ensure that all working people would have the right to a workplace pension, to which employers would have to contribute.

This is all music to the ears of people such as Cruickshank-Gray, who has spent most of her life piecing together part-time jobs to fit in with caring for three children, then gaining qualifications as a mature student. It is a typical mother's tale in which National Insurance contributions slipped off the bottom of the priority list. "It's the result of being a woman," she says wryly.

How the crisis could affect you

• At the moment, to qualify for a full state pension men need 44 years of National Insurance contributions and women 39, but only about 30% of women retiring now have enough contributions to qualify.

• In 1978, Home Responsibility Protection was introduced to give National Insurance credits to women who stayed at home to look after children, but women whose childcare years were before this date have a gap in their contributions. They also lose out on pension credit, which assumes they qualify for the basic pension.

• Men and women retiring on or after April 6, 2010, will need only 30 years' NI contributions to be entitled to a full basic pension.

• The government says that three-quarters of women retiring on or after April 6, 2010, will qualify for a full basic pension.

• By 2025, it is estimated that 90% of women will qualify.

But campaigners argue that is not enough.

• Women will first see their retirement age rise to from 60 to 65 between 2010 and 2020.

• Those born on or before April 6, 1950, will retire at 60. Then the retirement age will rise by one month every two months. For those born on or after April 6, 1955, it will be 65.