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Blog: The industry must support more inclusive investing

March 8, 2023

Research finds that women are missing out on the benefits of investing.

Today marks International Women’s Day (IWD) and this year’s theme is to #EmbraceEquity and promote a diverse, equitable and inclusive environment for all. So, today we wanted to spotlight some recent TISA research, which suggests that the UK Financial Services industry need to do more to support inclusive investing.

YOU MAY ALREADY KNOW THAT:

  • Women live longer than men on average.
  • Women have reduced purchasing power, due to the gender pay gap.

BUT DID YOU KNOW?

  • Women also experience a significant savings gap compared with men, with women aged between 21 and 53 holding just half of the investments held by men of the same age group.
  • Consumers who are female are 8% less likely to invest in a Stocks & Shares (S&S) ISA than a Cash ISA.
  • Over 40% of women with £5k in a Cash ISA and bank account say that they do not invest as they did not want to put their money into a risky investment.
  • Additionally, 25% of people find it difficult or very difficult to understand the language used to describe S&S ISAs, which rises to 34% for women.

These were some of the findings from the TISA/ Oxera joint report on The keys to unlocking greater investment in Stocks and Shares ISAs, which found that women are missing out on the benefits of investing, exposing them to reduced purchasing power compared with their male counterparts. 

This suggests that more work is needed to encourage more women to invest and close the gender investment gap in S&S ISAs. This could include marketing that specifically targets women, and further research into solutions that encourage women to invest. Encouraging more women to invest in S&S ISAs could help to tackle financial inequality between the genders.

TISA has a R&D project underway looking at how the communications for S&S ISAs can be improved to better address the inequality issues in investing.  We look forward to sharing the results later this year. 

Useful links/ references:

All findings have been taken from the TISA/Oxera Joint Report: https://www.tisa.uk.com/tisa-oxera-joint-report/
IWD official campaign page: https://www.internationalwomensday.com/