Loving is not just looking at each other, it’s looking in the same direction, as goes the adage. But when it comes to money, Canadian men and women are neither seeing eye to eye, nor in the same direction.
A recent Royal Bank of Canada poll, aptly titled He Says, She Says, exposed the considerable gap between genders in how they save and invest their money, particularly what they invest in and how much they invest.
Men, the survey found, are more concerned about socking away money for retirement, while women are saving for daily needs. In short, he says “save for the future”, she says “live for today.”
“What we’re seeing in our research is that women are placing more emphasis on taking care of daily needs—often the needs of others—rather than focusing on their long-term needs,” said Lee Anne Davies, head, retirement strategies with RBC. “This makes it all the more important for women to get advice about the options available to help them build their savings and enable them to have the lifestyle they want when they retire.”
The study, which included a national sample of 1,457 adults, revealed men (44%) were more likely than women (33%) to put money toward retirement savings and building an investment portfolio (23% men and 16% women). Women (79%), on the other hand, were more focused than men (73%) on balancing saving for immediate priorities rather than saving for the longer term.
Across Canada, almost one-third (31%) of women have not started saving for their retirement, compared to one-fifth (21%) of men.
Women tend to be more conservative in their approach to saving for the future, with a stronger focus on investments that provide steadier returns. “This is why we see the amount of money women say they need for retirement remaining steady,” says Davies. “The amount of money men say they need in retirement, on the other hand, changes as their investment returns change.”
The poll also drew focus on a striking disparity between what men and women plan to invest in within their RRSPs. While stocks remain the third most favoured type of investment for men (23%), they drop to the sixth spot on a similar list for women (14%).
Further, 22% of women, as opposed to 15% of men, admitted that they didn’t know what investments they hold in their RRSPs.