The Fearless Girl statue is pictured as an American flag hangs on the facade of the New York Stock Exchange in Manhattan on the 2024 U.S. Presidential Election Day in Manhattan in New York City, U.S., November 5, 2024.
Stephani Spindel | Reuters
Aviva Mehta noticed her husband regularly talked about money and investing in his social circles. She set out to do the same among the women in her life.
The 27-year old started a book club focused on personal finance. The topic comes up regularly on video calls with friends. On a recent evening, the New York resident discussed investing over a glass of wine.
“Women are making strides in every other aspect,” Mehta said. “We have to normalize it for women and not just look at it as something that men do.”
Women are gaining ground — and in some cases surpassing — men by several measures of financial and professional wellness. Yet a data analysis shows women haven’t broken through the glass ceiling when it comes to participation in the stock market, an idiosyncrasy that advocates tie to societal norms and ongoing pay disparities.
Single women are more likely to own a home. Women outnumber men at every level of higher education. An Indeed report from this month shows there are now more women in the workforce than men.
But a JPMorgan analysis of federal government data shows women accounted for around 35% of investors in 2025. That share is around the same as where it sat seven years earlier, the data found.
“We just don’t encourage girls as much as we encourage boys to pay attention to money and finance when they’re children,” said Jennifer Itzkowitz, a professor focused on gender-related issues in finance at Seton Hall University. “They just don’t develop an interest in it because they’ve never been motivated or encouraged to think about it.”
The pay gap and risk aversion
Part of the disparity stems from the fact that women typically earn less than men. The National Women’s Law Center found women earned around 81 cents to every dollar a man did. A Glassdoor report released this month showed that the pay disparity widens with age.
Experts have long said that a natural aversion to risk among women can make them less likely to place their money in the stock market. Layered on top of that is the long-held societal belief that money and finance is a “man’s job,” while women are expected to focus on domestic priorities such as cooking and childrearing.
But that caution around risk can make women better investors once in the market, as they are less likely to pick higher-volatility investments or try to time market swings, Wells Fargo noted. Research has long found that women investors tend to outperform men on a risk-adjusted basis.
“Maybe they’re not taking on as much risk in their accounts as their male counterparts might be,” said Veronica Willis, global investment strategist at the Wells Fargo Investment Institute. “But maybe that’s for the best.”
An ability to spot trends in consumer spending and brand prevalence has given Breanna Giglio and other women she knows an edge.
For instance, the Texas-based event planner said she bought shares of e.l.f. Beauty after the cosmetics company announced plans to acquire Hailey Bieber’s Rhode brand in May as a short-term trade. E.l.f.’s shares surged more than 23% in the trading session following the announcement, marking their best day on record.
“A lot of things that are affecting the stock market are also just what’s happening in life and in pop culture,” Giglio said. “Women very much do a lot of the household shopping, so it would make sense for them to then do the household investing.”
‘Bridging a gap’
A network of women are trying to get others to participate in the market.
At Fordham University, hundreds of female students gather for Smart Women Securities meets to learn about analyzing equities and financial statements, according to Rosa Romeo, a Fordham accounting professor who supervises the group. They also practice pitching stocks for judges.
On social media, Tori Dunlap regularly shares her experience saving $100,000 by 25 to millions of followers. Dunlap also has a book called “Financial Feminist” and an educational program called the Stock Market School aimed at women.
“If you are investing, automatically, you are bridging a gap that we’re seeing time and time again,” Dunlap told CNBC. “You are actually not becoming the statistic of the woman who waited or didn’t invest at all, and that’s powerful.”
Tori Dunlap hosts a workshop
Karya Schanilec
Data shows there should be progress on the horizon: Fidelity found a larger share of women surveyed had invested in the stock market from 2023 to 2024. But despite the growth, more than half of women believed investing was intimidating.
With women expected to particularly benefit from an ongoing wealth transfer, they will become a client base that wealth managers will increasingly target. Still, until the disparity is resolved, the stock market will miss out on inflows that would make it more stable, said Seton Hall’s Itzkowitz.
“We’re just letting them fall behind,” Itzkowitz said. “It’s bad for women. It’s bad for society. It’s bad for the market.”
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