Here’s Why Women Are Worrying About Money More Than Men, According To New Survey

A new survey reveals women’s financial health is at a five-year low, and women are now spending significant time worrying about their finances. Inflation and recession fears combined with concerns like reproductive rights and access to childcare leave women fretting about their financial woes more than their male counterparts.

According to a survey by Ellevest, a company aimed at helping women manage their money, women are not feeling comfortable with their current financial situation. Fifty-nine percent of women surveyed report worrying about their finances at least once a week, and a whopping 43% of women actively worry about money at least once a day. That’s more worrying than men reported on both a daily and weekly basis.

The cause of all this stress depends on the women’s age. Older women (Gen X and Baby Boomers) are more likely to be worried about the economy. They are stressing over inflation, a possible recession and potentially cutting back on their spending. For younger women (Millennials and Gen Z), reproductive rights, job security, the cost of childcare, housing prices and women’s representation in government are weighing on their minds.

And there are times when men outworry women. For example, men are more likely than women to worry about stock market volatility and crypto volatility.

While women’s and men’s financial health face similar issues, like inflation and consumer confidence, women are confronted by additional obstacles. The gender pay gap, women’s disproportionate share of student loan debt, the glass ceiling, limited access to paid family leave, reproductive autonomy and the lack of venture capital funds for female entrepreneurs can have an additional impact on female investors.

And even inflation can have disparate gender effects. Dr. Sylvia Kwan, chief investment officer at Ellevest says the fact that women earn less than men, coupled with their greater responsibility for household duties, leaves women worrying more as inflation ticks up. “One of the reasons 77% of women rank inflation as their top financial concern right now is because it is directly affecting their day-to-day lives. In fact, 58% of women say their cost of living has increased, but their salary hasn’t…And since women bear a larger proportion of household duties, including grocery shopping, it falls on women to figure out (and stress about) how to make each dollar stretch further in the face of inflation,” Kwan explained via email.

Kwan points out that older and younger women are united on one particular worry—how they feel about their financial readiness when it comes to recession. “We found that men (30%) were more than twice as likely as women (14%) to say they feel financially prepared for a recession. While we know women’s financial confidence is a major issue in play here—it’s possible to be in a good situation but still doubt yourself—another issue may be a lack of external support. Nearly 70% of women say they’ve never met with a financial advisor, compared to just 41% of men,” she described.

According to Kwan, women’s hesitancy to meet with advisors and invest their money stems from women feeling left out of an industry that targets male clients. “The financial industry is dominated by men and was built with men in mind, so it’s easy to see why men would find it easier to leverage financial advisors, invest and build strong foundations,” she describes.

Indeed, financial planners are overwhelmingly male. And, a recent survey of asset managers by BNY Mellon Investment Management found that three-quarters of them admit that their organization’s investment products are primarily aimed at men. To attract clients, they focus on the benefits and features of their products that appeal more to men than women. Some even use high-risk metaphors, such as those used in extreme sports, to describe their products and lure male clients. This male focus increases women’s alienation and helps explain why dramatically more men (63%) than women (36%) report that they are investors, according to Ellevest’s survey.

The good news for women is that research indicates that women who do invest outperform their male counterparts. An analysis of more than five million Fidelity customers’ performance over the last ten years found that, on average, women outperformed their male counterparts by .4%. In addition, Ellevest found that fewer women than men stopped contributing to their investments during the current market volatility, and this could mean more good news for women. “We know from experience—and historical data—that staying the course in investing has been a winning strategy in economic downturns,” the Ellevest authors explain in their report.