Womenomics

I have just read a disturbing and poorly researched article by Sarah Catherall published in the Dominion and here in the Press on the 2^nd of October. There is no denying the statistics she quotes, but as always the figures are historical and as usual can make a case depending on how they are framed (For more on framing read Money, Money, Money..Aint it funny)

The article would have had better balance if she had examined the trends relating to women and investment, or women and purchasing power. Like many other women I am tired of the slew of reports which paint me as brainless and financially illiterate. We are the decision makers for over 80% of consumer purchases. Some examples are: New homes 91%, Holidays 92%, Cars (Yes!) 60%, and, what about the realms of finances, say insurances and money? Women select new bank accounts nearly 90% of the time.

In the States two thirds of working women and over 50% of working wives earn more than half of the families income, write 80% of the cheques, pay 61% of all bills and own 53% of all shares. As at the start of 2000, six out of every ten new web users were women and of those women 83% were primary decision makers in the matters of finance, healthcare and education. It seems unlikely to me that New Zealand women are any different!

Again in the States (finding figures here is well near impossible) women owned businesses accounted for about 3.5 trillion in revenue- the equivalent of the German GDP. In fact one prediction from no less a journal from Private Banker International claims that by 2010- only three years away, half of all wealth is expected to be in the hands of women.

We have of course always worked, but not always been financially rewarded. It appears however that future economic prosperity is increasingly in our hands. A recent article in the Economist suggests that women’s paid work has not only added more to world wide GDP than that of men, but has also enhanced capital investment-Women’s employment over the last decade has added more to global growth than China.

And it is not just our economic clout- our investment skills are better than those of men. Robust studies such as Boys will be Boys (Boys will be boys:Gender, Overconfidence and Common Stock Investment. Brad M. Barber and Terrance Odean) confirm that male overconfidence and churning of portfolios significantly reduces their investment returns. . Financial planners have a distorted perception of women investors and tend to assume that women are risk averse and subsequently advise on that basis . There is some basis to the view that women are risk averse but we tend to think that 80% of women are where as it is more like 20%. Companies are waking up to the fact that women have money to invest- Citigroup, AXA, Wells Fargo,Merrill Lynch, Charles Schwab, Prudential, Wachovia, when will this happen here? As Tom Peters says in Re-imagine! “Id love to be the CEO of a financial services company for 60 months and redirect its strategy by 179.5 degrees..... In the direction of developing products for, marketing to, and distributing them to women... and then there is the composition of the board..........”