Understanding the Female Economy: The Role of Gender in Financial Decision Making and Succession Planning for the Next Generation

Barclays Wealth has undertaken this research to consider the role that gender plays in financial decision making. The aim of the study is to understand the female perspective in order to build a service that caters to their needs. This study was structured to enable researchers to explore:

• How aspects of women’s financial personalities, such as risk tolerance, composure, and desire for financial discipline, compare to those of men, as well as examining how male and female investors overcome emotional aspects of investing through the use of rules and investment strategies;
• How men and women across the world differ in their views on succession planning, and on the importance of leaving a financial legacy;
• The reasons for these differences in personalities, strategies, views and plans, through interviews with investment, succession and behavioral finance experts.

A survey of more than 2,000 high net worth individuals, all of whom had over GBP 1 million (or equivalent) in investable assets and 200 with more than GBP 10 million, was conducted to investigate the following two themes:

1. The financial personalities of high net worth individuals globally and the strategies used by this group to manage behavior when making investment decisions;
2. The attitudes of wealthy individuals towards inheritance, succession and planning for the next generation.