Soon, women will control a majority of private wealth dollars. That means investing in women is good governance, and smart business.
In 2015, Chief Personnel Officer Cindy Robbins decided that, after months of deliberating Salesforce’s pay gap issue with a colleague, it was time to tell someone who could do something about it. Robbins brought the issue to CEO Marc Benioff, who subsequently had the $10 billion company spend $6 million over two years to raise its female employees’ pay to be on par with their male counterparts.
The gender pay gap is a well-known issue — with women making in the ballpark of 80 cents for every dollar a man makes. But this 20 cent difference is likely to add up to greater than $1 million over a woman’s lifetime — and that’s only income; it doesn’t include potential investment returns. This inequity, which often begins in a woman’s early 20s (one could argue it starts earlier), has more implications for her life than simply income loss. It affects the way she invests, her family planning, and her retirement needs (it’s a well-known fact that women married to men are likely to outlive them).
In just two short years, women are projected to control two-thirds of private wealth in the United States. Investment advisors, the majority of which are men, cannot afford to be complacent about women and their investing needs. On average, women live four-to-seven years longer than men, and studies show that 70% of new widows fire their financial advisors. It seems like an obvious opportunity.
www.thinkadvisor.com
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