How will Freetrade encourage more women to invest?
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That is a great topic to discuss but it is very cold statistics and does not seems to be something extraordinary (hope I will not be referred as sexist once I publish the following).
As per the article, there are 872,000 women and 1,069,000 men with S&S ISAs (45% and 55% respectively). Given these numbers, I would even say that the difference is negligible and the issue lies in the fundamentals - education and careers.
For example, according to Higher Education Student Statistics, in Figure 4, the very last table, if you filter by āFirst Degreeā or āOther Undergraduateā, you will see that Male are 50% and 56%. Where it is 50%, 34% are indicated as āOtherā, the majority of which are likely to be Female and still few Male (and potentially Trans as well). Therefore, women are roughly 44%-48%, which correlates with S&S ISAs quite positively, I would even say nearly perfectly.
Worse further, according to Business Insider, only 29% of workforce in Fintech are women. But that is Fintech, this industry is still sort of new.
Looking at the Banking Services in London - 25%-38% per year are women. Very low (0% - 18%) executive positions in Risk, Finance, Operations, Investment and Technology filled by women although over 50% in Communication and HR.
I have looked at few other articles and every single one will suggest inequality and dominance of men in top positions and any Finance/Technology jobs regardless of seniority. And the thing is, the majority of people who invest are in Finance/Technology or holding executive positions.
One other figure that would suggest why 45% / 55% (Female / Male) split is reasonably fair - that very same Business Insider article, which says that women are only 47% of the entire UKās workforce.
Hence when you look at all the angles, you realise that 45/55 does not even look as bad as other things.
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We have Hannah, that is a start!
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Itās still early days. Freetrade as a company and community come across as approachable and inclusive so Iām sure itāll change when they start onboarding people.
Just another female here, gate-crashing your party! 
Iāll be trying my best to get some of my friends on board, but itās a tough sell, most of them just arenāt interested.
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Welcome, gate-crash away! 
Do you have a sense why they arenāt interested?
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A combination of thinking investing is complicated and too risky. Most of them have decent savings but itās all cash - at least one of them thinks that she couldnāt risk ālosing all her moneyā.
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Hi!
Yep, those are pretty much the usual suspects. Might be worth mentioning the cost of inflation risk to them.
I think people hate the idea of their hard won savings getting dusty and losing value when you frame it like that. Could be just me though
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https://freetrade.io/blog/inflation-risk-the-high-price-of-doing-nothing-with-your-cash/
This is to back you up 
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Data from the trading venue shows that the amount of women thinking about investing in cryptocurrencies has doubled in the last six months.
Thanks for the link @Cgwinning Thereās a big difference between āthinking about investingā and actually āinvestingā - the follow up question should be how many of those thinking about it will actually part with their money?
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Yes @weenie, and if not why not? It would be awesome if Freetrade lead the field in addressing gender imbalances in investing.
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For the usual reasons, including those mentioned above, ie ācomplicated and too riskyā
I think Iāll make it a mission of mine to persuade at least one female to Freetrade
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I also wonder if thereās also been a traditional marketing bias towards men?
Do you think partnerships with brands/magazines like Womenās Health for example could be a good āinā for financial services firms? Or say Balance Festival?
Investing is very much an old boys club so unless women see other women doing it and talking about it, some may not make that step as they just think āitās not for themā.
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@weenie we need you and your female friends to share experiences here. 
I am on a mission to get my girlfriends to sign up to the community and join the wait list. The more voices the better, and in my view it defeats the point if itās just a bunch of dudes talking about how to improve female representation and participation.
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I shall indeed share my experiences and hope I can persuade my friends to sign up.
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This sentence said it all 
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Perhaps it was an old boys club in the olden days when investing was a physical thing and was done between businessmen exchanging certificates and on trading floors, but since I started investing at the end of the last century the Internet has democratised sharedealing and gender doesnāt have anything to do with it imho. There are far more men than women though. But why, and does anything need to be done about it?
I didnāt get an invite to Freetrade because Iām maleā¦ I hunted this place down because I want to trade some risky shares and win or lose loads of money. My other half has cash ISAs and is happy with that. Weāre just wired differently. That doesnāt mean all men and women are like that but it works for us.
I would hazard a guess at why men are more likely to choose riskier investments but Iād probably get crucified in 2018.
Oh go on thenā¦ I think it is evolution (hunter gatherers and nurturers) and different hormones that make men and women have different investment preferences. Just my humble opinion/guess, others do exist, DYOR etc!
As long as everyone gets the same opportunities then it doesnāt matter imo. Iām going to be recommending a bunch of women to join freetrade btw!
Iām a lone female voice in here, my bit of oestrogen barely making a dent in this sea of testosterone!
Personally, I think itās more to do with how itās marketed - aimed at men, as mentioned by @CTE- and how investing is reported in the news, ie big wins but big losses, which put women off.
Anyway, some men might want to take a leaf out of womenās books since the few women who do invest often do better than men: https://www.cnbc.com/2017/05/18/whos-the-better-investor-women-of-course.htmls
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