13% of British males also think pensions are a ‘con' (as do 8% of British females).
The findings come from Aon Consulting's European Employee Benefits Benchmark Survey, and it shows a wide disparity between UK and European attitudes to pensions.
Just 4% of Britons say they put their savings into pensions because of the tax breaks, compared with 31% of Swiss, 26% of Begians and 14% of mainland Europeans overall.
In Britain 18% say they don't have a pension because they cannot afford it. This was similar to the rest of Europe, where the average was 16%.
More Britons are provided with a pension plan by their employer (47% in the UK, compared with 39% of Europeans) but, according to Oliver Rowlands, head of retirement, EMEA, at Aon Consulting, UK workers risk a rude awakening: "Employers take the provision of pensions for their employees very seriously but workers tend not to manage their affairs until close to retirement when it is too late. A lot of people will simply be walking blindly into retirement poverty unless they take more of an active interest in their pensions."
Other UK-specific findings reveal retail/property has one of the lowest employer-provided pension provision rates (33%, compared with 70% among those working in education); 5% have made a conscious decision to stay on state benefits.
