Women taking charge – of their money

More women are taking charge of their finances than they were five years ago.


"I’ve been in business for over 30 years and I’ve definitely seen a great expansion of the female customer base in the past five to eight years," said Alan Zartarian, a chartered financial consultant with Warwick-based New England Advisory Group. "I think a lot has to do with professional women gaining experience from being participants in 401K plans. It gives them a certain amount of knowledge and confidence."


A recent study released by New York City-based financial advisers OppenheimerFunds found that women are looking hard at their investment strategies.


Polling 1,200 men and women for its new research, the group found that 59 percent of the women interviewed were more interested in investing than they were five years ago.


Donald Sowa, a certified financial planner practitioner with Sowa Financial Group in East Providence and host of the Money Talk radio program on WPRO AM, agreed.


"Women are often participating in the company pension plan and kind of being forced to educate themselves in the worlds of stocks and mutual bonds," he said.


Sowa also said the changing dynamic of the modern household has a lot to do with this shift.


"Young people are marrying later, and both men and women need to be independent," he said. "They can’t be independent unless they know what tools are available to them."


Sowa said he thinks a lot of this has to do with the change of women’s role in society too.


"We’re seeing cases where the woman is the principal income provider. The husband may be a blue collar person or something, but there has been a definite role shift occurring within the married relationship," he said.


Sowa theorized that this movement toward a greater equality could change a lot of statistics in the future.


"Women are also developing a lot of the bad habits that were at one time nearly unique to men," he said. "The work-related stress can mean they’re smoking more and drinking more and may one day have the same life expectancy as men."


Traditionally women have a longer life expectancy and Sowa said because there is so much media discussion about the importance of women participating in financial decisions "because mom shouldn’t be ill-prepared when dad dies," many older women have been taking a greater interest in investing.


David Ullom, a financial adviser and branch manager of Raymond James Financial Services in Cranston, said about 75 percent of his clients are male and only 25 percent are female. The scales are slowly shifting though, and most of any new female clientele he sees are either divorced or widowed.


"In some instances we may have previously advised their husbands," he said.


Ullom said part of the reason he might not be seeing as many younger women coming in as men their age is that professional women often seek advice from other professional women.


"I believe that women coming into the market on a first-time basis are probably more likely to seek out other women advisors," he said.


Julie Macomber, a financial adviser with American Express Financial Advisors, agreed.


"My experience has been that females feel more comfortable dealing with other females," she said. "I have a large female customer base."


Zartarian said the trend of more people investing these days is not exclusive to females. He thinks a lot more people in general are investing because of self-educating finance pages on the Internet such as Yahoo! Finance and Morningstar.com.


"There’s no question that the amount of money invested in the last 20 years has dwarfed previous numbers," he said.


Sowa said the most obvious indicator he perceives is his radio show.


"We’re listening to the changes in our audience," he said. "More and more women are calling in with questions."

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