What you think you know about women investors may be costing you clients
“A financial plan should evolve just as your life does,” said Massy Williams, Vanguard’s head of wealth management, describing how women’s financial priorities tend to shift over time as wealth accumulates and life circumstances change.
The findings arrive as women represent what Janel Jackson, head of bank and institutional at Vanguard Financial Advisor Services, called “one of the biggest growth opportunities for advisors today.” Advisors who continue to approach female clients through an outdated lens, the data suggests, risk losing them.
Confidence is not the problem
The first myth the study dismantles is that women are broadly underconfident about their finances.
According to Vanguard’s data, 76 percent of women surveyed described themselves as confident in making financial decisions and while this figure is modestly below the 83 percent reported by men, it hardly supports a narrative of widespread insecurity.
Women who work with a financial advisor are nearly three times more likely to describe themselves as having advanced financial knowledge than those who do not. That gap points less to a confidence deficit among women and more to the measurable impact of quality advice.
