How do women invest?
Updated:
3 MAR, 2026
Women in the field of investments are no longer just emerging – they are reshaping the global financial landscape. While earlier research highlighted women’s disciplined and cautious investment approach as a driver of outperformance, the latest UBS Gender-lens investment: The state of women in 2025 report shows that women are also becoming a decisive force in global capital allocation.
The narrative has evolved: women are not only investing differently – they are controlling more wealth, influencing markets and shaping the future of sustainable investing.
Growing economic power
Women currently manage around USD 32 trillion of global spending and are expected to control 75% of discretionary spending worldwide within five years.
On the wealth side, women held about 32% of global private wealth in 2020, and this share is rising quickly. In the US alone, women are projected to control USD 34 trillion – around 38% of total wealth – by the end of the decade, up from just above USD 10 trillion in 2020.
At the ultra-high-net-worth level, there are now 344 female billionaires globally, controlling USD 1.7 trillion, with their assets growing faster than those of their male counterparts.
Do women still outperform?
Historical data suggests that women have outperformed men on average. Studies from Warwick Business School and Fidelity found that women generated between 0.4% and 1.8% higher annual returns than men.
The more recent UBS research does not present new performance figures directly comparing men and women. However, it confirms that the key behavioral traits linked to past outperformance remain in place.
Female investors tend to:
– Spend more time researching
– Follow long-term plans more consistently
– Trade less frequently
– Focus strongly on risk management
– Feel more confident when investments generate positive social impact
The wealth and funding gap
Despite progress, structural gaps remain. Women are expected to accumulate only around 74% of the wealth of men by the end of their working lives. The global gender wage gap remains close to 20% and has not meaningfully narrowed in decades.
Entrepreneurship shows similar disparities. Only about one-third of companies globally have female participation in ownership. In US venture capital, all-female founding teams received just 2% of VC capital in 2024. Interestingly, female-founded companies tend to show lower burn rates, suggesting more efficient capital management – but they still receive less funding on average.
Closing gender gaps in labor force participation and leadership could add up to USD 7 trillion to global GDP, and potentially USD 22–28 trillion if full equality were achieved. This is not only a social issue – it is a macroeconomic opportunity.
Women and sustainable investing
One of the strongest trends is women’s alignment with sustainable and impact investing. Women report greater confidence in their decisions when investments have a positive social impact.
As wealth transfers accelerate – including an estimated USD 9 trillion shifting between spouses over the next 20–25 years – women’s influence on capital allocation toward ESG and impact strategies is likely to increase significantly.
Conclusions
Women are often described as cautious investors. The 2025 data suggests that this caution is a competitive advantage.
Lower overtrading, stronger risk controls, long-term thinking and alignment with structural growth themes such as sustainability position women as disciplined capital allocators.
Women are no longer just outperforming quietly – they are becoming one of the most important forces shaping the future of investing.
