"Women managers tended to take less extreme risk and to adopt more measured investment styles (which perform well over time)"

I don't think I understand the question in the headline- this quote makes it sound like the research says women are more risk-averse, not less.
Is the headline asking whether the opposite of the study's result is true?

Thx

The title doesn't seem to match the blurb, as the title suggests women take more risks, and the blurb less.

My understanding is the female gender role comes with instructions to be more risk-averse than the male gender role does, it wouldn't be surprising if we acted this way, on the average. Of course, one probably ought to qualify that it's not necessarily biological, but may be socialised. (i.e. Men are taller than women, and that's probably biological. Women live longer than men, and that's probably partly sociological, but may (or may not?) include a biological component. Women have longer hair than men, which's entirely sociological. I don't think any of these are controversial, though some might insist I'm explicit they're just on average.)

Of course, the flipside can also be that women are perceived as more risk-averse, because it's expected, rather than they actually act that way.

If women (as a group) do invest differently to men then I think that says more about gender socialisation than the inate qualities of the genders. As such, making policy decisions on this information is bad practice.

I have no reason to doubt the research mentioned. In fact I tend to believe it. However, I view it as a symptom of our gendered culturalisation.

Employers can't be encouraged to use gender as an indicator of a potential employees investing techniques. If you want a good long term investor, examine their current portfolio with that in mind, or devise an objective test to determine their ability in that area.

Whether a trait is seen as positive or negative is immaterial inasmuch as it should not be ascribed to either gender. Because if it is then individuals become moulded to express that trait. Coversely, individuals belonging to the other gender are discouraged from that trait. I don't think we want a world where women are moulded to be one thing and men are moulded to be another thing, regardless of what those things are.

Having said that, identifying the trend is good. The next step is to identify the cause. Once the cause is identified we can begin to break down the societal mecahnisms leading to the gender disparity.

I find that I don't really care much about investing. If I did, I would encourage the discussants to focus more on intersectional identities, like race, class, and sexual orientation, rather than just gender. I don't know how enlightening the conclusions are.

"A 2005 study from the Center for Financial Research at the University of Cologne documented differences between male and female fund managers: Women managers tended to take less extreme risk and to adopt more measured investment styles (which perform well over time). And according to research published in 2002 in the International Journal of Bank Marketing, women tend to make investment-related decisions with a detailed, comprehensive approach, while men are more likely to simplify data and make decisions based on an overall schema."

I would interpret this as observational data concerning the behavior of a group of individuals in the context of a particular culture, and not statements about essential characteristics of men and women. Women may indeed be more risk-adverse in investing, now, in today's culture. Is it because of hormones, neurophysiology, cultural conditioning? Debate!

Last year, Latoya Peterson wrote in Bitch about how mainstream women's magazines fail to educate readers about finances and investing. Any "money" stories were about spending it. Or, they gave advice on how to ask for a raise (which, at my job, would get you fired) - so that you can spend the extra money on frivolities, of course!

Around the time that story was published, a Glamour cover told women about "the scariest money mistake women make (it's not shoes!)" It was for a story about women who succumbed to unscrupulous lenders and were steered toward dodgy mortgages.

If Glamour and its ilk ran intelligent and easy-to-understand advice on how to buy a house, perhaps the article's subjects wouldn't have been in such dire straits. Then again, it's in the ladymags's interest to steer women toward buying Louboutins than using that money on a house, CD or IRA.

Women, as personal investors, tend to make less than men, so they tend not to invest as much, just as a matter of capital that they have access to. Corresponding to this, what kinds of funds are women given? Do men get the bigger, more demanding investors? Are women assigned funds with more conservative stockholders?

The assertion that women are "less aggressive" investors is rather like saying that "assertive" women are "aggressive" or "bitches." This is a double standard, at least in the language being used, which does not adequately represent the facts, because the context is defined by patriarchal values of competition over cooperation.

Women, stereotypically, are "spendthrifts." That is, based on an arrangement in which they have historically been prevented from earning at all and made to be economically dependent on men, it feels to men like women waste money (that they perceive that they "earn" as the wife makes "nothing," although implicit in the arrangement is that sex, children, child care, and household management are done to make the man successful, to make his business associates comfortable when they are entertained by the wife, etc.). Thus, ideas about women and money are based on an unequal and unjust system in which men's misperceptions define the parameters of the discourse.

In contrast, once women began to earn their own money, they have proven to be better savers than men. Also, studies have shown that when women do spend, they do so on their children first. When men get extra money, it tends to go to things for themselves. Funny how our assumptions do not at all match up with what really happens.

Courtney -- Just some thoughts on research studies in general, from someone who reviews lots of them:

When you're evaluating the credibility of a study, the best thing you can do is look at the actual research, not articles that summarize or interpret it. Do you have a link to the actual study that you could post?

When looking at the research, you want to evaluate their methods carefully. How were the subjects chosen? What are the demographics of the sample? How did they test their hypothesis? Do you think that the method they used supports their conclusion? For example, if the study in question recruited women using a particular advertising technique, or there's a large preponderance of one economic group in the sample, you need to start thinking about selection bias. There's really no substitute for looking at the actual research yourself.

Another thing you want to ask yourself is, "Has this study been published, and where?" If that study from the University of Cologne was published in a credible, peer-reviewed journal, you can consider the data more trustworthy (though as I say, there's still no substitute for looking at the data yourself). If it's just an abstract that the BBC got ahold of, or something presented at a conference, the data are less trustworthy in general.

Never, never draw your conclusions based on a news outlet's interpretation of a study, no matter how much you trust that news source. Not until you have seen the actual paper for yourself. There is a lack of good science reporting in this world, and a disturbing tendency to sensationalize research -- Sadly, that seems to be especially true when the research involves gender issues.

Sorry for going on so long. It's just that you mentioned that you weren't scientifically sophisticated enough to evaluate the validity of claims like these, and I wanted to point out that it's not something you have to be sophisticated in order to do! Just track down the actual paper -- That's the key.

One possible reason why female financial managers might have a distinctly different investment strategies than their male counterparts:

If women are drastically underrepresented in the industry and there are widespread perceptions that "women make bad investors", female financiers may be at much greater risk than men of being fired if they take a big risk and it doesn't pay off.

It's one of those "priming" things. If people are already set up to see women as bad investors and men as good ones, a big bust on a bold risk proves that a woman is a bad investor but that a man is willing to go out on a limb after the big bucks.

With that kind of perverse incentive system, the best way for a female financier to keep her job is to take a much more cautious investment strategy producing steady, low-risk returns.

http://www.iwillteachyoutoberich.com/blog/category/women-and-money/