Today, women have access to more investment opportunities than our mums and nans ever had. But the number of female investors still lags behind men. Is it because women worry themselves into inaction, asking: ‘Where do I start? How much should I invest? What should I invest in?’ 

Is it simply too overwhelming, and some women count themselves out before they even start, thinking, ‘Investing just isn’t for me’?

If you’re female (or you know one), sit back and relax. We’re going to bust some gendered investing myths*, show how women have great money habits, reveal why it may be crucial that women consider investing in their financial plan, and we share 4 simple tips to help you get started.

_{* For the purposes of this article, to reflect the research data, the genders are male and female}

Women have great money habits 

A 2024 New York Life Wealth Watch Survey found that women in married relationships with men are confident in managing the day-to-day household finances, like paying bills (88%) and saving for emergencies (74%). But just 42% of women said they’d want a larger role in long-term financial decisions. Married men were more likely to manage these with their top five including;

• Mortgages (61%)
• Investments (62%)
• Retirement savings (62%) 

According to 2021 ASB research, despite New Zealand’s gender pay gap, ‘Kiwi women have better everyday financial wellbeing than men, as they spend less and save more’. ASB also found that our Kiwi wāhine are less likely to live payday to payday, and one-third have an emergency fund.

The long term difference between saving and investing

Both the New York Life and ASB data showed that most women appear to be good savers. But ASB’s report revealed that if women put more money into investments rather than just into savings accounts — which typically earn minimal interest rates — they could potentially have significantly more money at retirement thanks to compound interest, which grows over time.

‘ASB found that on average women hold more in savings in the bank than men, but they're not capitalising on this advantage long term. Projections show that if these additional savings were invested in an appropriate KiwiSaver fund, women aged 35-65 could collectively boost their retirement funds by around $750 million.’ — ASB customer data report

So when it comes to saving versus investing, women need to understand how both can help reach financial goals. 

• Savings — is a financial tool to reach short-term goals, like a fridge replacement or a holiday, or an emergency fund, which acts as a financial buffer to cover everything from car repairs, to paying living costs in the case of an unexpected job loss
• Investing — aims towards longer term goals (5+ years), such as buying a first home, putting the kids through university, or being financially prepared for retirement

The gender confidence imbalance

The New York Life survey found that when thinking about managing household finances overall, the top emotion women reported feeling was ‘stress’, while for men it was ‘confidence’.

An earlier 2022 Bank of America (BoA) study found that while 48% of women feel confident about their finances, only 28% felt empowered to make financial changes (such as investing). As New York Life reported, the majority of the women surveyed by BoA said they manage their day-to-day finances well, such as paying bills (92%). But just 53% of women said they were confident in managing investments, and only 44% in creating a diversified portfolio. 

The BoA found that while women and men have nearly equal influence on day-to-day financial decisions, less than half of women feel they have influence when it comes to the more longer term investment decisions, and 1 in 3 women feel they lack knowledge to be more involved in investing. The study also found that women are starting to feel more comfortable talking about money, with 53% of women saying they would find it easier to talk to other women about money. 

So what’s the biggest investing mistake women make? It seems that women lack financial confidence, and this may be costing us potential wealth in the long term.

The gender retirement gap

It may seem unimportant that women have lower confidence than men when it comes to investing. But when a lack of financial confidence stops women from taking financial actions, it can materially impact their finances, particularly in retirement. We may not know how to fix the gender pay gap, but investing for women could help fix the gender retirement gap.  

New Zealand’s Financial Services Council (FSC) found that ’Kiwi women retire with less than men’. In their 2025 Insights & Trends: Women and Finance in New Zealand report, the FSC highlighted that our gender pay gap, along with possible career breaks to have a family, or be the primary caregiver for children or elderly parents, is contributing to lower lifetime earnings, resulting in a 25% gender retirement savings gap. 

In 2025, Kiwi women take home 8.2% less than men, earning around 91 cents for every dollar that a man earns (for wāhine Māori, Pacific, ethnic, and disabled women, the wage gap is even higher). In the US, American women earn around 16% less than men — that’s 84 cents to every dollar —  and more than 40% of American working women don’t have access to employer-based retirement plans. According to a 2024 Prudential Pulse of the American Retiree Survey, the median retirement savings for American women is US$50,000, while for men it’s US$157,000, meaning the average American woman retires with 68.2% less than men.

Women typically live around 5 years longer than men, so the retirement savings gender gap in both Aotearoa and the US means women need to take more financial steps than men to grow the same retirement funds as men.

Gen Z and Millennial females are financially literate and investing

Fortunately, the tide is turning, and women are growing their financial literacy and confidence. According to the Fidelity Investments 2024 Women & Investing Study, Gen Z females (born between 1997 and 2012) invest 10.4% of their pay outside of retirement funds (such as a KiwiSaver equivalent). This compares to all women, who invest 9.5% into extra investments. 

Gen Z females are nearly two times more likely than Gen X females (born between 1965 and 1980) to invest outside of retirement funds. And at Hatch, in 2024, Millennial and Gen Z investors made more buy orders than any of the older generations — both males and females.

Despite this, Fidelity also found that women’s confidence doesn’t seem to reflect their actions, adding that only 64% of female investors actually consider themselves as ‘investors’, which compares to 76% of men.

New York Life also found that younger women are becoming more financially literate than their older female peers:

‍‘Financial education for women is evolving — Gen Z and Millennial women (born between 1981 and 1996) report having received formal financial literacy education at much higher rates than Gen X and Baby Boomer women (born between 1946 and 1964). There’s an increased desire to invest, save and achieve financial freedom, as 82% of women report wanting more financial information that reflects their interests, including buying a home.’ — Jessica Ruggles, Corporate Vice President of Financial Wellness at New York Life

Kiwi women are financially literate

The FSC found that Kiwi wāhine ‘are proving to be more financially literate than men, despite often underestimating their own abilities’. In their 2025 report, they found that 66% of women correctly answered three or more financial literacy questions, compared to 57% of men,

'Women demonstrate a strong understanding of key financial concepts such as investment strategies and risk diversification. However, the findings also reveal a persistent confidence gap, with many women perceiving themselves as less knowledgeable about financial matters.’ — FSC 2025 Insights & Trends: Women and Finance in New Zealand

More women than ever are investing

Trends show that women are investing in greater numbers. A 2024 Fidelity Study found that while 70% of women said they’d wished they’d started investing earlier, 71% of women owned investments in the share markets — up 18% from their 2023 study. And Gen Z females are leading the way, with 77% of them owning investments.  Fidelity’s earlier 2023 Investments Study found that 60% of women actively invested in the share markets, which was up from 44% in 2018.

NZ investment advisors Craigs found that in 2024 there had been a noticeable increase in women investing.

‘We’re seeing a growing interest among women in investing, which is encouraging. Women have the temperament and skills to excel as investors.’ — Chantal Baxter, adviser, Craigs Investment Partners

The timing couldn’t be better either, because the global trillion dollar intergenerational wealth transfer has begun. According to Morning Brew, in the US, ‘US$84 trillion of wealth is set to be passed down to younger generations by 2045’. A 2020 McKinsey report: Understanding Female Investors suggested US$30 trillion of that wealth to transfer in the US to millennials and Gen X by 2030, and suggested ‘American women are expected to control’ much of it. 

In New Zealand, the wealth transfer from the Baby Boomers to their Millennial children is estimated to be worth around NZ$1.11 trillion over the next 20 years, which according to BERL, ‘could make Millennials the wealthiest generation ever’. 

Are women risk-averse or risk-aware?

Investing in the share markets always has risks, because markets are naturally volatile and may be impacted by geopolitical factors, such as trade wars. But without some risk there's less opportunity for potential long term investment return. 

Hedgehog Investments found that women are more likely to evaluate the risks by doing their research before investing, making them more risk-aware than their male counterparts, adding that female investors are ‘more likely to create a well-balanced portfolio’.

According to the Forbes Finance Council, being risk-aware is a more conscious approach to risk-taking, ‘where women take a calculated, long-term approach to investing rather than a speculative, short-term approach’, which may lead to higher performance in the long-term; a suggestion backed by chartered financial analyst (CFA) Barbara Stewart:

‘Women are increasingly closing the investment gap and proving that being risk-aware, rather than risk-averse, leads to better long-term outcomes.’ —  Stewart, CFA Institute

Forbes Councils Member Odiri Oginni believes women approach investing with caution, ‘often prioritising wealth preservation over wealth accumulation’, and suggests women don’t typically invest in risky assets (whereas men are more inclined to take more risks). Co-founder and CFO of Optas Capital Meghan Railey agreed, saying women don’t tend to ‘jump on the shiny bandwagon’, saying ‘(women) take their time to explore investment opportunities and stay in their investments longer’.

Women are better investors than men

The February 2025 Wells Fargo’s Women and Investing: The strengths of women investors report showed investing returns for female investors were higher than men’s — a consistent finding since the 2001 ‘Boys Will Be Boys’ paper by Berkley’s Barber and Odean. Collated by the Wealth & Investment Management (WIM) Analytics group, the report covers the seven years between January 2018 and December 2024. It showed that for both single investing accounts and joint accounts where the females led the decision-making, women’s investment decisions outperformed men:

‘When making decisions for their (investing) accounts, women achieved higher returns on their investments while taking on less risk than men… (and) data showed that women investors, on average, took 13% less risk than men to achieve the same return.’ — Wells Fargo WIM Analytics group

While Fidelity’s studies have consistently found that female investors have outperformed men by between 0.4% and 1.8%, which Forbes showed that over time, this can make a significant difference to returns due to compounding growth. 

Using Forbes’ example, if you’d invested US$1 million in 2000 and had an average return of 7.4%, compared to a male investor who’d had just 7% average returns, your difference would be US$530,657 more — enough to buy your own South Pacific private island. 

Kiwi women, you’ve got this!

Typically, women in New Zealand today are financially independent, and many earn good money. Yet if we continue to underestimate our financial ability and don’t grow our confidence, are we playing it too safe with our money and limiting our future? 

Perhaps we could take a leaf from investing GOAT Warren Buffett’s playbook and learn by doing: 

‘If you are investing in your education and you are learning, you should do that as early as you possibly can, because then it will have time to compound over the longest period.’ — Warren Buffett

Our 4 simple tips to get started

If you’re ready to discover investing there’s no right amount to start with and no one right way to start in choosing your first shares, but our 4 simple tips to help you on your way.

1. Hatch Getting Started Course

Start simply with our free 10-day Getting Started Course. In just 10 minutes a day for 10 days you’ll learn investing basics and even make your first investment (if you’re ready). You’ll discover your own risk tolerance, how the US share markets work and what you can buy on them, and how to create your investing plan. It’s jargon-free, and you’ll join more 25,000 Kiwis who’ve graduated our course and taken their first step.

2. Back what you believe

Technically you’ve already invested in loads of brands, so perhaps start your research there. Is your laptop a MacBook (AAPL), Chromebook (GOOGL, GOOG), or Dell (DELL)? Are you flexing in Lululemon (LULU) or Under Armour (UAA, UA)? Are you clocking up steps wearing Adidas (ADDYY - ADR), or Nike (NKE)? Do you chill to Netflix (NFLX), Disney (DIS), Amazon Prime (AMZN), or all three? Perhaps one of the brands you already use (aka invest in) could inspire your research and lead you to your first share.

3. Invest in an ETF or basket of shares

Want to spread your money across a group of companies in one investment? An exchange-traded fund (ETF) might be just the ticket. An ETF is a basket of shares, and when you buy shares in it, you own a small slice of every company included in it. With ETFs, you can choose industry-specific, such as finance, or themes, like clean energy, gender diversity and cannabis, or you could select ETFs that pay dividends so you can earn an income while you invest. Learn about some of the most talked about ETFs, the S&P 500 — and Hatch’s most traded ETF, Vanguard’s S&P 500 ETF (VOO) —  the Nasdaq-100, and the Dow. And discover other market benchmark ETFs, like our homegrown NZX 50, Aussie’s ASX 200, and London’s FTSE 100.

4. Research shares in our all-you-can eat financial buffet

Our LearnHub and Investment News has all the content you need to grow your investing smarts. Tuck into how compounding interest works, savour how share prices are calculated, discover finger-licking simple investing metrics to research shares, and sample a low-effort investing strategy, dollar-cost averaging. Sign up to our zesty investing newsletter The Fry Up to dine out on the companies and ETFs people are talking about. And you’re all set to go to devour our investing smörgåsbord on your commute to work, while you’re stirring the bolognese, or trying to avoid the 3-hour TikTok wormhole before bed.

There’s no better time than the present

Your financial future is in your hands. When you’re ready to invest, all that’s left to do is open your first investing account, deposit money, and choose your first shares. And ta-da, you’re part of our vibrant Hatch investing community!