Which countries have the largest share of female investors?

The investment world has long been dominated by men, but is this the same worldwide or are some countries surging ahead in this regard?

In Canada, there is a clear gender gap with men making up 79% of investors compared to just 21% that are women. A similar gap is also seen in many other countries including the United States (77/23), the UK (79/21), France (77/23), Germany (80/20), and Australia (78/22).

However, a new analysis from BrokerChooser.com shows that there are plenty of countries where women are participating in investing in greater proportions.

The Philippines leads with a 56% male, 44% female split; followed by Barbados, Papua New Guinea, Trinidad and Tobago, and Jamaica.

Bangladesh has the lowest share of female investors at just 12% while Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Pakistan, and Brazil complete the bottom 5. 

There are no countries where women investors outweigh men and the global split is 76% men, 24% women, making Canada slightly below the average.

The full report is at: https://brokerchooser.com/education/investing/how-countries-invest

Women in finance

The low share of women investors has many contributing factors, including a lack of female financial advisors.

In an interview with Wealth Professional earlier this year, Sun Life Global Investments’ president Oricia Smith highlighted figures that show only 18% of Canada’s advisors are women, and she said that the demand for financial advice for women in growing.

“Around half of the women polled in a recent financial independence survey said they had no financial plans. Of those, 60% were between 45 and 54 years old,” she said. “To me, it’s a wake-up call to a gap that’s got to be filled.”

Things are worse at a fund manager level with recent data from Citywire showing that just 13% of the 749 managers of Canadian-domiciled funds are led by women.