Far less women invest compared to men, though their need for a healthy retirement pot is far greater.
There are more than a million stocks and shares ISAs held by men, compared with 870,000 held by women, and male ISA investors outnumber women in all age groups. However, more women than men have opened a cash Isa, which indicates the problem is specific to investing, rather than saving generally.
The world of finance can sound like a it is full of confusing jargon and that is intentional! If it is confusing the point that regular person cannot understand it, you’d have to pay someone to navigate it for you. The language is designed to be confusing and intimidating. That intimidation is largely worse for women as male financial advisors greatly out number their female counterparts.
Investing is a huge wealth generator, and women, for one reason or another, tend to do it less. 71% of the money women have is in cash, and any financial advisor will tell you, cash not only doesn’t earn a return; it actually depreciates over time thanks to inflation.
The most important thing you can do to change the investment gap is simple: Educate yourself. People who understand investing are less likely to be intimidated by it and more likely to do it. It’s not hard—you’re not trying to become a astronaut. You want to know whether you’re on the right financial track.
The irony is that despite investing less, there’s evidence that when women do invest, we’re better at it.
Here’s what’s interesting about being a good investor. It’s not about doing research on stocks, or having a good gut instinct, or knowing what’s going on in the tech industry. For people to build wealth in the long term, there is one trait that matters the most: being disciplined.
Plum have recently shared some statistics with us that we want to highlight. 60% of people who save with Plum are women but only 40% of investors with Plum are women. This means that even though there are less men using Plum in the first place they still taking a bigger slice of the pie when it comes to investments. Plum want to help close that gap and even the playing field.
The Penny Pal has teamed up with Plum so that when you save for 30 days with them, you receive £5. While heading over to Plum to savings, why not check out their investment plans? Capital is of course at risk when you invest with Plum and can go up as well as down. Just in case your response is “I don‘t know how to invest” The Penny Pal have pulled together an edited reading list of some the books we recommend you read if you are not fully confident yet. Wealth lies in the confidence to invest.
