You’ve heard of the gender pay gap, which is the difference between women’s and men’s typical earnings – in the UK, women typically earn 14.8% less than men – but have you heard of the gender investment gap?

Statistics show that in 2023, 76% of men in the UK invested their savings, compared to 63% of women. This equates to 9.9 million male investors and just 6.8 million female investors. Men are also more likely to have stocks and shares ISAs, while women tend to keep their savings in cash deposits.

With the gender pay gap also at play, men are investing more actively and with larger sums of money than women (men save £1,512 more than women every year in the UK).

“Lower investment participation among women is often attributed to gender differences in attitudes towards investing. On average, women are found to be less financially literate, have lower confidence in making investment decisions and adopt a more conservative approach to financial risk-taking compared to men,” says Dr Ylva Baeckström, senior lecturer in finance at King’s Business School.

However, she says this perspective of women as unaccomplished investors compared to men is overly simplistic and incorrect.

“My previous research shows that women can have equal financial knowledge and confidence levels as men and that women who have female financial advisers invest up to 11% more than women with male advisers. These women also have higher financial knowledge and confidence than men,” says Dr Baeckström. “Other research shows that when women do invest, they achieve higher returns than men because they make less biased investment decisions.”

Considering this, why does the gender investment gap persist? New research commissioned by trading and investment platform eToro found that on-screen depictions of finance and investing play a key role in reinforcing the stereotypes that perpetuate the gender investment gap.

Led by Dr Baeckström, the research analysed major films and series about finance and investing from the past 15 years – including The Wolf Of Wall Street, The Big Short and BBC series Industry – and found that three-quarters of screen time is occupied by men, with the women on screen relegated to wives, mistresses, assistants or in sexualised roles, such as strippers.

It also found that, of the female characters who were portrayed as financial experts, none of them had children, which reinforces the idea that women must choose between having children and a high-powered career.

Where the films and TV series do feature female financial experts, the research found that they tended to feed into stereotypes of women being less confident, knowledgeable and more risk-averse when it comes to making financial decisions than men.

“These on-screen depictions, while sadly unsurprising, are deeply disappointing and have a potentially disastrous impact on society. We all know that women earn less, invest less, yet live longer than men and therefore have an even greater need to build wealth to secure their futures,” says Dr Baeckström.

“It has been proven that what we watch on screen affects our attitudes and influences our behaviour. The misrepresentation of finance and investing as a pursuit for ‘alpha males’ and the lack of female role models are all perpetuating the gender investment gap.”

Additionally, the analysis found that characters’ visual representations align with gender stereotypes: female financial experts are far more likely to adopt submissive physical postures than men, while the body language of male financial experts is more domineering and dismissive.

“We observed a slight improvement over the past 15 years, with films such as Fair Play and more recent episodes of Billions introducing stronger women in roles that highlight their capabilities, struggles and complexity,” adds Dr Baeckström.

“Movies have the power to demonstrate the reality that investing is for everyone, regardless of gender and background. Ordinary people, including women, need to be inspired and encouraged, not excluded and disrespected.”

Images: BBC