How we can fix the one- size-fits-men approach

The finance industry's default response to the gender investment gap has been “education”.

- Kashyap Kompella

Teach women more. Nudge them harder. Encourage “confidence”. This approach misidentifies the constraint. The issue isn’t knowledge or intent, but product design.

Modern financial products are built around an assumed profile: a continuously employed individual with an uninterrupted career arc and predictable growth (in earnings, assets and net worth). Women’s economic lives are more likely to be discontinuous. Career breaks for caregiving and phases of part-time work increase the likelihood of income volatility.

A woman-friendly product, in such a world, is not one marketed in bright hues of pink. It is one whose rules adapt to these realities.

What this large and increasingly wealthy market needs is products that do not penalise interruptions in growth and earnings, and do more to recognise and reward low rates of default.