Gender Bending Investments

When it comes to investing, Canadian men and women are not on the same page.

This is a key finding of the annual RBC RRSP poll conducted by Ipsos Reid. The data reveal that significant differences exist in the way men and women save and invest their money, where they choose to invest and how much they invest.

For example, over four in ten (44%) men report having put money towards their retirement in the last year, compared to just one in three (33%) women. Further, more men (23%) than women (16%) also report having contributed to building their investment portfolio in the last year.

On the other side of the coin, women (79%) were more likely than men (73%) to say they ‘worry’ (29% a lot/51% a little) about balancing saving for their immediate priorities versus putting money away for the longer term or their retirement. Moreover, more women (31%) than men (21%) say they haven’t started saving for retirement.

Not only have more men started saving for retirement, but those who have started began saving earlier than their female counterparts. One quarter (25%) of men say they started saving for their retirement before the age of 25, compared to just 20% of women who say they started saving this young.

The data also reveal some interesting differences in the types of investments that men and women prefer in their RRSP portfolios. While stocks rank as third-most popular type of investment among men (23%), they’re only the sixth-most popular type of investment among women (13%). Women, on the other hand, are slightly more likely to prefer savings accounts (ranked 3rd at 23%) than men (ranked 4th at 19%). Both genders say that mutual funds are their preferred type of investing, but only 38% of women hold mutual funds compared to 46% of men.

Women investors are also less likely to know some of the key details about their investments. While nearly one quarter (22%) of women say they don’t know what types of investments they hold in their portfolio or that their advisor handles these types of details for them, just 15% of men say the same.

Women also have remarkably different expectations than men when it comes to the amount of money they think they’ll need when they retire. While women believe that they’ll need $510,000, on average, for their retirement, this expectation is relatively unchanged from three years ago ($566,000). By comparison, three years ago men thought they would need $922,000 for their retirement, but have adjusted their expectations as of late to $493,000. Apparently women’s ambitions are more conservative and steady, while men’s vary with the economy.

Six in ten (61%) Canadians currently have an RRSP. Examining the most popular type of investment options, among those who have RRSPs, for the 2010 tax year:

• Four in ten (42%) have contributed to mutual funds (46% men vs. 38% women)
• One quarter (25%) have contributed to GICs (25% men vs. 25% women)
• Two in ten (21%) have contributed to their savings accounts (19% men vs. 23% women)
• Two in ten (19%) have contributed stocks to their RRSPs (23% men vs. 14% women)
• Two in ten (18%) don’t know what types of investments they have contributed to in their RRSPs, or say that their advisor takes care of it all (15% men vs. 22% women)

These are some of the findings from the 21st annual RBC RRSP conducted by Ipsos Reid between October 29 to November 4, 2010. For this survey, a sample of 1,457 adults from Ipsos’ Canadian online panel was interviewed online. The results are based on a sample where quota sampling and weighting are employed to balance demographics and ensure that the sample’s composition reflects that of the actual population according to Census data. Quota samples with weighting from the Ipsos online panel provide results that are intended to approximate a probability sample. A survey with an unweighted probability sample of this size and a 100% response rate would have an estimated margin of error of +/- 3 percentage points, 19 times out of 20, of what the results would have been had the entire population of adults in Canada been polled. All sample surveys and polls may be subject to other sources of error, including, but not limited to coverage error, and measurement error.