10 Reasons Why 2016 Is Shaping Up to be a Great Year for Women....Financially Speaking

Here are 10 reasons why 2016 can be a great year to be a woman….financially speaking.

1) We women control $5 trillion in investable assets in the United States alone. That’s control, not jointly control, not have some influence over. Control.

And….if we were all to invest just 10% more of these assets in diversified investment portfolios, rather than keeping it in cash, we can unleash $20 billion in additional wealth annually.[1]

2) When we women invest, we’re as good – or better – investors than men. (And, by the way, forget what you’ve been told: we’re also as “good at math” as the guys.)

And….if you were to invest $50,000 in a diversified investment portfolio, earning 5% annually on average, you could earn an additional $2,000 in income in the first year. You may shrug…but the power of compounding means that this grows to more than $110,000 over a 30-year period. [2]

3) We women represent 51% of the workforce in the U.S.

And….this can be a positive for our kids. Daughters of working mothers go on to earn 23% more than those whose mothers do not work outside of the home, and sons go on to spent 7? more hours on childcare a week.

4) We women are starting businesses at twice the rate of men.

And….since we start companies, in good part, to build the types of businesses at which we want to work, this means we can leave outdated ways of operating behind us. It can mean more companies with modern cultures that make sense for us today.

5) We women are directly responsible for 23 million jobs in the U.S.

And…..we can create even more jobs. The options for funding for our businesses are increasing, as the ecosystem supporting women-led businesses grows, and as crowd-funding explodes. In crowd-funding, women-led businesses do as well at raising money as – or better than – men’s.

6) Start-ups with women founders perform 63% better than men-only, according to First Round Capital.

And….those returns can improve even more. As the cost of starting businesses comes down (think cloud computing, co-working spaces, the freelance economy), those saved costs can mean better products and less expensive services for consumers, as well as better returns for investors.

7) At more established companies, more women at senior levels also leads to better business performance. This is true across industries.

And….women report that their #1 reason for accepting a new job is “meaning and purpose.” So it’s not just better business results; it can also mean more businesses having a positive impact on their communities.

8) There is emerging research that when a company adopts family-friendly policies, its shareholder returns are higher.

And…..Salesforce.com has just closed their gender pay gap; NetFlix has just announced a one-year paid parental leave policy. So admired companies are starting to take action.

9) The “flex economy” is opening up opportunities for a broader range of women who might not want to work full-time or in a traditional workplace, for any range of reasons. There are 53 million freelancers in the U.S. now.

And.....this also means there are more services, and more businesses, that are serving us well. At a lower cost.

10) There is now a real conversation about mandated parental leave in this country.

And….not only would a mandated parental leave help us and our families, it can help us as a country close the retirement savings gap. If we have adequate leave, we are more likely to come back into the workplace, and so we are more likely to contribute to Social Security, contribute to our 401(k)s and save more overall.

Bonus Reason: We are hard at work on Ellevest. Ellevest will be a digital investment platform, designed to reimagine investing for women. We’ve spent most of 2015 hard at work on this, engaging with hundreds of women over the course of the year, to co-create it with them. Stay tuned!

This was originally published on Ellevest.com. Please note important disclosures. 

[1] This assumes that cash returns 1% annually, and a diverisified portfolio returns 5% annually.

[2] This assumes that cash returns 1% annually, and a diverisified portfolio returns 5% annually.