1. Society Biasness. Women often have lesser take home pay compare to men and are seen to play supporting roles. Subsequently, they lack support and opportunity. The difference of take-home pay can be as high as 25%. This inherent discrimination is almost universal culture except for a few Scandinavian countries. This inherent disadvantage creates lesser savings for women and impact their retirement plans.

2. Roles & Duties. Women tend to take time off for their children and family matters. This instinct means a drop in their cumulative income and consequently their savings. When they do return to work, they lag their male counterpart in terms of income, savings and retirement plans. This compounded her opportunity for promotion in the long run. This set her total savings and retirement funds back by as much as 25%-35% compare to the men.

3. Long term Outlook. Investment for women is often for family and children especially for health and education. As such their investment is often small and incremental, long term and low risk, stable and committed. This mindset also saves women from over trading and brokerage commission, sales taxes and consolidated returns and dividends. Of course, because of the wonders of compounded interest the yield is often higher than their male species.

4.Back to Basics. For practical stuff like food, grocery and daily necessities women tend to go for seasonal sales, privilege coupons and store brand. They are truly competent in squeezing the most out of a dollar and consequently their savings adds up to quite a bundle annually. Of course, this means extra money to her savings and retirement plans – which she rightly deserves.

5. Financial Literacy. Women are lacking across the world in financial literacy. This means lack of confidence and interest in savings, investments and other key areas in financial planning. This often result, along with other financial constraints and disadvantage, adds to lesser bargaining power for women which will be obvious during their retirement phase and beyond.

6. Value Systems. Women contract a debt for critical and essentials needs which include a home or children education. If they are single the needs for loan are for education and health. Meanwhile, women tend to squeeze their expenses to settle their debts sooner, if their savings and capacity allows, as compare to men. For women it is best to live without debts and to use savings to offset any, while for men debts are a necessity for growth.

Women earn less and therefore save less. But their savings competence is higher while their expenditure control is better. Women are less familiar in investment but more prudent and obtained higher returns over time.

Therefore, women must leverage a Financial Integrator to continue their power in squeezing money. Join us for more sharing on how Women can be more Engaged, Enabled, Empowered & Enriched.