The women's issue

FOR RICHER, FOR POORER. When a woman is wealthier, it’s not just her wallet that wins, it’s the bank balance of the entire household that improves by a wide margin. 

- NICOLA FIELD

Let’s crunch some numbers. 

If gender pay were equal, that would be an extra $26,600 a 

year, according to Workplace Gender Equality Agency data. Add superannuation payments – that’s another 23.4% in savings at retirement, equivalent to hundreds of thousands of dollars extra in your nest egg, according to Association of Superannuation Funds of Australia (ASFA) research.

And if you want your investment portfolio well protected in times when markets are at their most volatile, you’re more likely to do better if your fund manager is female, according to Investment Metrics.

In this cover story, we explore why female fund managers can give you a financial edge, why a female financial planner can be better at sorting out your retirement plan and why – for goodness’ sake – we need to get rid of all the gender stereotypes that are holding us back financially. 

The support network in Australia for women who want to invest or want to pursue an investment career is rich and broad. To name a few, there are Chief Executive Women (CEW) for female business leaders, women’s investment networks around the country and corporatebacked programs like Girls Who Invest, sponsored by fund manager PIMCO.

One of the silver linings in the pandemic is that it has encouraged more women to start investing in the sharemarket, demand higher pay from their employers and turn their side hustles into million-dollar online businesses.