Penny for your thoughts...

Women are more financially capable than men.


I stumbled across an article written by Janet Bodnar, Deputy Editor of Kiplinger's Personal Finance. It is a piece about how women and men handle money.


If you read the first page, it actually makes it seem as if women are much less capable. It says that women have far less confidence in their abilities to invest in stocks. It also says that polls of women have very high numbers of not understanding financial things (like mutual funds).


However, on the first page, it also says how women are the ones in the household who will most likely pay the bills, balance the checkbook, and maintain the family budget. And, when dealing with investments, women are actually better. They may not have a lot of confidence in their investments, but their turn-out is usually better. Women are more likely than men to research their investment ahead of time. They will look at the trends of the stock and make an informed decision on whether or not to invest. While it may take them a while to commit to it, they will be very informed.

Also, men invest more often. While that makes it sound like men invest more because they are better at it, it is actually just because they are overconfident in their abilities. They jump into the investments, and the turn-out probably won't be as great as they expect. Also, a man's overconfidence in his abilities makes him make many mistakes with his investments. Women, since they research and think it through first, will not make as many mistakes.


Women: 15
Men: 0