Women and Money and Independence and Markets

This week we celebrated five years of our Women and Money campaign. Much has happened in that time, both in our own lives and out in the world. Our campaign has been there through that half decade of change, delving into the issues behind that relationship between women and their finances.

?Since we started, we have seen the women surveyed change jobs, they’ve had children and they’ve retired. Money is such an important part of all those life events, how we feel about them and experience them. Money is a means to independence, and it’s the difference between a sense of safety and one of insecurity. With all this change, we’ve seen solid progress on how our respondents are feeling about investing their money.

?Nearly three quarters now feel confident when making decisions about which financial products and services to choose, up from 69% in 2018. And, when asked to reflect on the last five years, almost a third of women feel more confident today managing their own money.

?We launched this campaign in 2018 because we spotted a gap in what we, and our industry, really knew about how a good half of the population approached their finances. As we started to pull on that thread, a lot of varied, complex issues came out. What we found, as we expanded the campaign across our different markets, was bound up with the gender pay gap, the pension gap, and subtle, but powerful, barriers to investing in the form of investment jargon and risk-aversion.

?And then, in 2020, something very profound happened. We were all sent home to isolate. It may be three years ago now, but I expect most of us still vividly remember that moment of realisation of what lockdown meant; when the streets, the offices and the shops were empty and silent.

?The world stopped but life went on, and the knock-on effects had a devastating and disproportionate impact on women and their finances. We observed that women were more likely to see their savings fall, and that they were less likely to view themselves as investors than men.

?We are still feeling the impact of the pandemic today. Even now, 38% of men are planning to invest more money in the future compared to just 22% of women. And that matters as women already suffer a pension gap of just over 30%.

?At Fidelity International we take the view that financial health, like mental or physical health, affects everyone’s quality of life, from youth right through to old age. Nobody should leave this to chance. And so, the purpose of the campaign, dovetailing with our purpose as a company, is help people understand that it’s never too early to learn the tools of financial independence, and it’s never too late take control of your finances, your money and your future.

?We all have a life-long relationship with money. We want to make sure that as many people as possible have the resources to make it a happy one. To do this, we must grab every opportunity to demystify investing, change the mindset around it find new, digital ways to reach people who might otherwise be underserved.

?It feeds into broader forces at play in the wider economy. If a large section of the population is waiting on the side-lines of the investment world, it means that our markets are not working to their full potential.

?The more sources of capital we can draw on, the better the investment environment will be for companies driving the recovery. And, when someone makes that decision to invest, not only are they buying a stake in that recovery, they’re also investing in themselves, backing their own future.

?It’s a virtuous circle that turns more quickly, the more people participate. Our Women and Money campaign shows that it still needs a nudge to get it going faster.

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