Financial vulnerability and seeking expert advice: Evidence from a survey experiment

The role of a bank advisor is especially important for guiding and counseling financially distressed individuals. Using a randomized controlled survey experiment conducted on a representative sample of French individuals and priming the financial vulnerability of half the respondents, we examine attitudes toward bank advisors. We find that priming deters low-income individuals from showing an extremely negative attitude toward seeking banking advice (positive effect); it also deters them from showing an extremely positive attitude (negative effect). We also find that acute financial distress partially drives the positive effect, and a lack of financial literacy partially drives the negative effect

Economic condition and financial cognition

International audienc

Risk taking in the context of financial advice: Does gender interaction matter?

This study tests a gender threat hypothesis whereby having a financial advisor of the opposite gender results in gender stereotypical risk attitudes in portfolio choice. We employ a unique dataset of 1,621 advised UK investors, combined with information on the gender of their financial advisors. Confirming the hypothesis, our results show that men advised by a woman take more risk than when advised by a man. Women advised by a man adopt a more cautious approach than when advised by a woman. When the gender threat is alleviated, that is when women are advised by women, and men are advised by men, we found no gender gap in risktaking

How gender, marital status, and gender norms affect savings goals

Setting savings goals can increase wealth accumulation behaviour, yet it depends on how challenging the goals are. Using rarely available savings goals data from 1,760 clients of an advisory investment firm, we identify gender attitudinal differences in goals amounts: men choose more ambitious savings goals than women, independently from expected life-long earnings. This, however, holds only for individuals living in a couple, for which men’s savings goals reach the highest levels. Based on insights from qualitative research (56 semi-structured interviews of 60 participants), we argue that these differences originate from gender-normative roles assigned to members within the households. Most women are assigned to daily budget management, exacerbating worries about financial security issues in the short term and negatively impacting savings goals. This observation holds even when women, rather than men, manage long-term investment for the household. Men’s assignment to long-term financial planning is related to optimism and ambition with regards to their savings goal choice, but these attitudes remain conditional on the fact that they do not deal with day-to-day budget management

Being in a couple can leave women with less savings – here’s how to make nest eggs more equal

Research shows differences in how people set savings goals that could contribute to a wealth gap between men and women in the UK