Better confidence, greater returns?

It may be 2026, but a new survey suggests a gender gap when it comes to investing.

“Women are a little more than half the population and they’ve made a lot of economic progress over past decades, but there still is a persistent wealth gap,” says Dorothy Sanford, chair of the investor advisor panel for the Canadian Investment Regulatory Organization.

The national regulator for investment advisers and brokerages released the findings of an inaugural report on gender differences, finding women are less likely to invest than men and, most revealing, in Sanford’s view, are less confident about investing.

“One of the key messages coming out of all this is women’s lack of confidence,” she says about the survey of 3,000 Canadians, including 2,000 women.

It found 43 per cent of women identify as investors versus 56 per cent of men, and 47 per cent of women report feeling confident about investing versus 66 per cent of men.

“The other striking finding is that 22 per cent of women say they don’t know where to start,” Sanford says, which speaks to a lack of confidence as well.

The above findings are reflected in risk-taking relative to men with women more likely to choose low-risk investment like guaranteed investment certificates.

“I’m not saying a GIC is a bad solution, but if you’re scared off by an equity (stock) mutual fund and you’re a young woman, you might be missing out on future growth and wealth accumulation,” she adds.

The findings are likely a reflection of broader socioeconomic norms and factors, whereby women have traditionally ceded investment management to their male spouses, she adds.

At the same time, personal finance education has not been a large focus in school curriculum with most people learning from other family members or on their own.

Wealth adviser and veteran certified financial planner MaryAnn Kokan-Nyhof at IG Wealth Management in Winnipeg often works with women clients in their middle age. By nature of working with an adviser, these women have significant investable assets, are well-educated and very knowledgeable about investing.

But many face a long-running challenge: time.

“Since women are most often the primary caregivers of the younger and older generations, they don’t have the luxury of time to dedicate to learning about mutual funds, stocks and bonds,” she says.

Although men increasingly share in caring duties compared with the past, Kokan-Nyhof still sees many female clients being the ‘sandwich generation,’ caring for children and aging parents.

“I totally understand this, having lived it myself for over a decade with my teenage children and my aging mom who had dementia.”

What she urges anyone wanting to learn more about investing to build more long-term wealth is to find even just one hour a month to work with an adviser or on their own to start their investment journey now, as opposed to later.

Of course, the challenges facing women to invest are not unique. More men could also be investing in markets for the long-term, as the CIRO survey found.

What often stands in the way of many Canadians are widespread myths about investing, says Helen He, vice-president of retail investments at Scotiabank. “One of those is that you need a lot of money to do it.”

That’s not true; most financial institutions offer easy entry points to start investing for a few dollars a month, she says.

Canadians can set up automatic deposits to a RRSP (registered retirement savings plan), for example, of just $25 every two weeks, invested into a diversified portfolio — which can be just one fund.

“The most powerful element of this approach is taking advantage of compounding interest over a longer period of time,” He says.

Investing $50 a month over 40 years in a balanced portfolio averaging seven per cent annually, for instance, would result in a portfolio worth close to $124,000. Doing that with $200 a month would build a nest egg worth nearly $500,000, and $500 a month would be worth more than $1.2 million.

Another common myth is risk involves losing money — and so people unfamiliar with the stock market tend to fear it.

He says risk has upside and with advice, knowledge and experience, individuals can harness risk to provide higher returns that can multiply their capital many times over several years.

Diversified portfolios are important to build to mitigate downside risk while allowing individuals to participate in the upside of risk, she adds. “And advisers can help build that for you to meet your goals.”

Indeed, just seeking advice from an investment professional can be important for those who don’t know where to start.

That said, a willingness to learn about investing is essential because the more people learn, the more confidence they will have. And confidence is essential, as Sanford notes.

To illustrate the point further, she cites one finding in the CIRO report that asked a multiple choice question involving basic math on investment returns.

When one of the choices was ‘I don’t know,’ women scored lower than men. When that choice was removed, women scored the same if not a little better, Sanford says.

“So the interesting lesson is that women knew the answer, but because some didn’t have the confidence, they defaulted to the ‘I don’t know’ option.”

Joel Schlesinger is a Winnipeg-based freelance journalist

joelschles@gmail.com