Whatever happened to “girl power”? The phrase became a cultural phenomenon after the formation of the Spice Girls pop band in 1994, and was adopted as the mantra for millions of girls, even making it into the Oxford English Dictionary.

But, it seems that many fans — now grown women — are relinquishing this ideology in favour of that portrayed in a later cult classic: Sex and the City. Today’s generation of single women are relying on finding their “Mr Big” to fund their future and are investing a significant amount of time, effort and money in pursuit of the Carrie dream, a survey shows.

Almost one million women have set their sights on a knight on a white horse, banking on finding a rich man to take care of them, according to the “fashionistas not cashonistas” report from Friends Provident. Just 23 percent of the single women it polled have a pension and 20 percent have life or health insurance, yet just over a quarter own more than 30 pairs of shoes. Many are investing in their appearance to help them net an eligible man, too, the survey of 1,458 women aged between 25 and 45 found: 36 percent spend more than 50 pounds per month on clothes and accessories and 24 percent spend more than 200 pounds per year on beauty treatments.

And, it seems that money — not love — is the motivating factor in many relationships. Almost a third of Britons state they are reliant on their partner or spouse for financial security — but not all these relationships are based on love, according to another recent survey. Over 955,000 Britons would leave their partner if financially independent, according to Kaupthing Edge, the online retail financial services arm of Iceland’s largest bank.

It might be a sad fact of life that many women — like their counterparts in years gone by — still marry for money. But, for those women trying to stand on their own two feet there are still huge inequalities, particularly when it comes to pensions.

Figures from HSBC show the picture of retirement savings among women has improved greatly: in 2005, when it started tracking consumer attitudes to pension planning, just over a third of women surveyed aged 18 to 60 were contributing to a pension. Three years on, over half of women questioned are now paying into a pension.

But there is still a serious issue that lies largely outside women’s control. They still have far more erratic working patterns than men, taking time out from employment to raise children, for example. That means that, currently, only 35 percent of women retire on the full basic state pension, according to the Department for Work and Pensions’ gender impact assessment of pension reform, published last December.

The introduction of “personal accounts” into which workers will be automatically enrolled — the government’s solution to the looming pensions crisis — aims to increase that to two-thirds. Still, far more needs to be done to level the playing field. “It seems as if pensions were built by men for men and assume that everyone has a full basic state pension, which does not help women,” said Steve Bee, head of pensions strategy at Scottish Life in a recent podcast. “The government is making a mistake by assuming that women’s lives and work patterns are becoming more like men’s and that, therefore, they suit pension products designed for men.”

He called on ministers to allow women to buy back “missing years” of national insurance contributions to help them achieve a full basic state pension and put in place “proper advice structures” to help them on the road to a rosier retirement. Perhaps small steps, such as these, would herald the beginning of a new era of financial “girl power”.