Women aged 25 to 34 are the most likely to hold Cash ISAs of all age groups, at 23% (811,000) of the total number of women with Cash ISAs last year (3.59m).
Bowmore Financial Planning says savers who do not want to take on too much risk may want to consider investing in other asset classes to supplement the returns on cash savings – for example, investment-grade corporate bonds.
Jill Ellicott, Chartered Financial Planner at Bowmore Financial Planning, says: “We need to break the cycle of women being over-exposed to low returning savings products.”
“Cash ISAs should not be relied on to create wealth long term – in a normal environment, inflation would easily outstrip the interest rates on offer which leads to the value of savings being eroded over time.”
“There is arguably an advice gap here too. There is a considerable amount of research out there which suggests women do not think they get the same financial advice as men. Pre-determined biases could be resulting in some advisers pigeonholing women in lower risk categories.”
“If people, particularly women, do not fully understand their risk appetite and do not have access to the information or advice needed to make informed decisions, then we will not see the gender gap in Cash ISAs narrow.”
Men represented half of all Stocks & Shares ISAs last year, at 56% (1.3m) of the total number of individual holders (2.3m). Men have held more than half of Stocks & Shares ISAs for each of the last five years.
*2017/18 year-end March 31. Latest available
**Global Financial Data
***Barber and Odean 2001, 2002; Croson and Gneezy 2009; Hira and Loibl 2008
