Do women have specific investing issues that men don ?
I think they have specific issues because they have special needs. They should invest similarly to men, buy the same good stocks that men do, but their financial planning requires very different input. Statistically, women enter retirement in far inferior financial shape. Many women are in and out of the labor force. They have responsibilities for children or parents. They tend to predominate in part-time or consulting jobs. So they don’t tend to build the same level of benefits — the same pension benefits, for example — that men do. They start out disadvantaged. The second problem women have — and this is a good problem — is they have longer life expectancies. They are going to need to support themselves for a longer time in retirement. And the third thing, which is really unfortunate, is that women tend to put too much of their money into savings accounts, for example. In their desire to avoid risk, they tend to be too conservative. Those low returns from savings accounts or CDs,
