Pension funds and equity investing should go together like fish and chips, salt and pepper or Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers – to some extents they still do, but both halves of the partnership are under some strain.

In the UK, pension funds have had a decade long battering from various assailants; poor investment returns, over-zealous regulators, a series of bad news stories and growing public indifference to pensions.

As a result, if the ‘churn’ element is taken out of the annual sales figures, the amount of new money entering into pensions is almost certainly inadequate for retirement provision.

Three particular trends are worrying for those concerned about pension savings.

One is the shift from defined benefit to defined contribution schemes and the fact it often leads to a fall in contribution rates.

This will produce a fall in pensions; one leading pensions lawyer CoreData Research UK talked to recently spoke of some companies becoming concerned over the problems from low savings in DC pensions and employees being unable to afford to retire.

Another concern is the problems for young people entering the job market in starting a pension.

High levels of student debt and the high cost of property mean than many young people could be well into their thirties before they start a pension.

The final trend for concern is the loss the savings habit; people want their pleasures now and seldom choose to save. This is difficulty for a financial product built around a long-term savings habit.

On the equities side of the equation, the idea of equity investment as a bedrock of pension portfolios has also taken a battering.

Sales of mutual funds to individuals have slumped in recent years, after a succession of poor years of returns.

A couple of years ago, commercial property funds were heavily marketed shortly before that market collapsed. And new investing styles, such as absolute return funds have failed capture the imagination of retail investors.

Among larger pension funds, equity allocations have been cut, as mature funds increase bond weightings and use diversification to reduce risk.

Hedge funds, promising positive returns whatever market conditions, and low-cost, passively managed exchange-traded funds (ETFs) have also squeezed traditional active equity managers.

Is it time for the financial services industry to ask if the old approach of expecting investors to put money into equity funds over a long period of time is the right way to finance their retirement savings?

After all, equity returns can be volatile and it is almost impossible consistently identify the best managers.

But the investment industry seems to prefer to sell star managers or clever processes than index-tracking, which leaves investors dependent on rising markets.

A further question is just as individuals are seeking property or other ways of saving for a pension, the government is planning to bring in a compulsory pension scheme for all those without a pension, from 2012.

Will voters want to be corralled into a pension plan that presumably invests in equities, among other assets? Based in their current behaviour, it doesn’t seem likely.

If pensions and equities are to get back together for ordinary savers, there may have to changes.

To use a sporting analogy, 2020 cricket has excited supporters who were getting bored of longer formats of the game and brought in new spectators.

It is hard to think of the pensions equivalent and pension investors don’t want too much excitement, but a new approach that meets customer needs could be necessary to reinvigorate the pensions and equities partnership.