14/12/2019
The investment management industry has begun to take a close look at its workforce and the levels of diversity within that, which has been encouraging to see.
But what about its approach to end clients? And its marketing to the outside?
A quick scan of the asset managers’ advertisements in the press – man in boat, man on bicycle, male engineer, images of planes, trains, footballs – and I think its fair to say females are not in mind when these campaigns are created.
Women are certainly not being engaged and the near 40% gender pensions gap highlights how far this goes how little reach there is to half of the population of savers.
Earlier this week, I attended the CII Insuring Women’s Futures event, where it was disclosed that, even though the Equal Pay Act is almost 50 years old, the gender pay gap is not expected to close until 2050 and, based on this, gender pensions parity is not expected until 2100. Some very scary figures.
There’s more.
Around 60% of low earners are women and 73% of part-time workers are women, while 75% of employees ineligible for pensions automatic enrolment are women.
The gender pay gap is at 17.9% in the UK, and to add that shocker, a man’s average lifetime earnings are 80% more than a woman’s.
The CII is calling for a number of rule changes at the government level such as including the gender pension gap in gender pay gap reports – so that firms can identify where they need to take action – and allowing everyone, whether they are on low pay or high pay, to be able to claim 3% employer pensions contributions.
These are all great initiatives and we sincerely hope the CII succeed with their lobbying but there is so much more companies that are managing the savings, investments and pensions of society can be doing. We need to close that gender pensions gap much sooner than 2100, which is why Research in Finance has teamed up with City Hive to give understanding on how this can be realistically addressed by asset and wealth managers with practical solutions and clear direction.
Our Gender Pensions Gap Study is unlike others already carried out as it is directly aimed at investment managers and will identify how they can drive change. It will pinpoint the ongoing pitfalls that companies fall into and carry out deep analysis through quantitative, qualitative research and focus groups on what will improve this issue, providing them with practical solutions and clear direction.
Bev Shah, CEO and founder of City Hive, commented: “Our aim is to build on existing research that has established the scale of the gap to provide targeted recommendations on how to create better connection between industry and it clients – current and future.”
Adele Gray, research director at Research in Finance, added: “We will be looking into copy, imagery, communications, mediums and brands to unearth behavioural bias, information gaps and lack of awareness/understanding.
“Albert Einstein once said ‘the definition of insanity is repeating the same actions over and over again and expecting different results’, which sums up the last 10 years or more in our industry. There needs to be proper disruption and a collective industry strategy to move the market.”
I can only reiterate here that Research in Finance and City Hive are extremely passionate about creating something that will implement real change in how women are engaged with their pensions and savings, and that involves taking a thorough look at every aspect of our industry; our customers, our employees, our community.
We look forward to sharing our findings with you in 2020. For more information contact Natalie Kenway, Editor & Head of Content.
Natalie has joined Research in Finance to take on the newly created position of editor and head of content, working with our outstanding research team here she will be providing high quality insights to the financial services industry.
