The #1 Confidence Booster for Women

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Well, damn.

At Ellevest, we’ve just released the Ellevest 2018 Money Census*. For it, we interviewed 1,000 women and 1,000 men about all things money, confidence, and how things have changed for them since the 2016 election.

And damn.

Want to guess what women said were the top drivers of feeling in charge of their future??

It’s not salary, it’s not “the fair and equal way I am treated at work,” and it’s not the “support I get from my boss.” It’s not support at home, or educational level, or the state of the economy.

It’s investing and saving.

Investing and saving are cited as top-of-the-list for feeling in charge for all age groups; interestingly, they become even more important to women as we age. (Future You giving Current You a big high-five for setting her up, no doubt.)

Another interesting note: Investing and saving have become more important for women since the presidential election.

They’re top-of-the-list of what we’re talking more about since the election, and they’re top-of-the-list of what we’re doing more of since the election…right up there with “standing up more for what I believe in.” (Hell yeah.)

What’s more: Even though taking care of ourselves financially comes in at #1 on what makes us confident...would you believe that we grossly underestimate the potential financial impact of investing? You know how often we at Ellevest point out the “gender investing gap.” Well, almost half of the women surveyed don’t know that the gap exists; and as a group they generally underestimate how much the gender investing gap may cost them. Not by a little: They estimate the cost to be anywhere from 10% to 50% of how much it actually costs. And women of color and LGBTQ respondents underestimate the cost even more.

Let me put that in human English: At each income level, we underestimate the cost to us individually of not investing as much as the guys do by anywhere from a couple hundred thousand dollars to $1 million+. That’s a lot of “take this job and shove it” money.

I’ll let that sink in: Investing/saving provides us with the biggest confidence boost…even though we don’t fully recognize OR act on  the positive impact it can have on our lives. And that confidence boost only increases as we age. (Future You totally gets it.)

What did we learn from the guys? Well………

Let’s just say they don’t see things the way we do.

For one, the election did not jolt their thinking as much as it did for women. And they don’t recognize the inequities that exist for women at work as much as we do: Less than half of us (42%) think the playing field is fair at work for women while the majority of the guys do (58%).

Interested in what else we found? There’s lots more. Check out our report and some concrete actions women and men can take that it inspired.

Bottom line: Women’s blind spot? Money. Let’s fix that.

Men’s blind spot? All that women are experiencing in the workplace and as a result of some of the misogyny revealed in the wake of the election. Let’s help fix that too by engaging on this with the good men in our lives.  

But first? Taking care of ourselves financially.

*The Ellevest 2018 Money Census (the “Census”) was conducted online between November 3-10 2017 in conjunction with Chadwick Martin Bailey. Base: Women (1,034), Men (1,009), Women of Color (231), Non-Women of Color (808), LGBTQ (200) and Non-LGBTQ (968). Participants are US residents who range in age from 22-65, more than 90% of whom are above the age of 30. All participants represented having personal incomes of $50,000 or greater and were involved in managing their personal or household finances. Not all questions were answered by Census participants. The Census was funded by Ellevest.