She Will Have Her Sway

How the Shift of Wealth to Women Will Change Everything from Education to the Environment

It was in 1984 that Cindy Lauper sang ‘Money, money changes everything.’ Perhaps she sang with such conviction because she knew it to be true. At 17 she had already left home and was living in a cockroach-infested apartment with drug-dealer neighbours. She hitch-hiked, occasionally stole clothes for herself and her sister and at times had no food, her boyfriend presenting a squirrel for dinner that he had shot. When Lauper sang, a new generation of women listened. Previous generations had already been propelled into the likes of Avon, lured by the chance to have an independent income and their own car, a luxury one at that. Money, it seemed, could change everything.

We’ve long called her Mother Earth, yet the world we’ve lived in has been decidedly male. Far from being in a state of acceptance of such a reality, women have been on a quest, variously articulated as one of equal rights or human rights. Generations of women and their male comrades (sometimes known as the enemy) have met the challenge with vigour, although subject to bouts of despondency, confusion and regrouping. Nonetheless, they’ve persisted, buoyed by the odd breakthrough, a female presidential candidate for example, although her loss risked a charter into the doldrums. But now we find ourselves far from there, somewhere on the high seas.

As we battle over the specifics of how far we’ve come, pointing to rampant sexual abuse, unequal pay, gaping inequality and scant retirement balances, a new world power is clearly emerging—and it’s female. Unlike other generations, however, more women are armed with the thing that makes the world go round—money. Women have more money than they’ve ever had and they are set to inherit, as well as earn, even more. How women spend, save and invest this money will change, well, everything.

There are obvious signs of this shifting world order: more single women with no need to marry for financial security, for example. Each census tells us there are more women living alone, not just the elderly but also the young, and the more money they have, the more common it is. More than 80 years ago Virginia Woolf declared that money and a room of one’s own delivered women the freedom to write. Today many women have a whole home in their own name, and the freedom to do so much more.

Women are to be found in boardrooms, law courts and the leadership teams of businesses hoping to court investment. They’re not in numbers deemed fair or equal but they keep appearing, and we’re keeping count. Wall Street might have been slow to shake its male dominance but when it comes to the finances of the world, women hold the top spots. We have Christine Lagarde as managing director of the International Monetary Fund, an organisation charged with the responsibility to foster global monetary cooperation and secure financial stability, and Kristalina Georgieva as chief executive officer of the World Bank, which includes the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development and the International Development Association. Given the gender composition of the banking and finance sector (majority male), having women in these positions is symbolic of more than just bounds forward in gender diversity, it says something about the future of money.

Women are rising not just through the ranks at work but perhaps even more importantly also in their share of the world’s wealth. Each year more women are added to rich lists, be they compiled by age, industry or region. As we continue to question the concentration of wealth among the few, with trickle-down economics yet to be proven true, it would seem that it’s even more than a trickle the rest of us can hope for from this new distribution of wealth.

When money is scant, women tend to spend it on children, food and communities, changing their world and the world of those around them. Policymakers have recognised this by focusing on financial empowerment of women as a way to enhance global development.¹ At the other end of the spectrum, women who have lots of money are more likely than men to invest it ‘responsibly’, balancing ethics with returns.² Global investment firms are starting to recognise this as a preferred way of thinking about money. Given where the quest for money has at times led us (slavery, money laundering, sweatshops), we should hail this change in how money might be managed. Finally more money might be put to good use.

 

•    •    •

 

In the past women were not able to inherit in their own right, and yet now they are set to inherit the majority of the world’s wealth. In the United States alone, women will inherit 70 per cent of the money that is passed down over the next two generations. ³ It’s not just elderly women outliving their husbands who will inherit. In the coming decades, the baby boomers (perhaps the biggest and wealthiest generation in US history) will transfer an estimated US$30 trillion in assets to their Generation X and millennial children.⁴ But first, it is women who will be the stewards of what is termed ‘the great wealth transfer’.

Women of the baby boomer generation are the most financially empowered women in history. While some have never had the rush of being flush with money, others have had successful careers and financially rewarding partnerships such as marriage. They’ve held and benefited from investments (especially property) during ‘boom’ years and they will inherit from parents and husbands. This is known as a double inheritance windfall.⁵ Wall Street advisory firms are already jostling to advise these women on how they might manage and spend their wealth. They’d be wise to turn their minds to what the woman wants from her money. Firms that built their reputations and lined their own pockets by giving advice to families for generations will risk losing their most lucrative clients if they fail to understand how she wants to invest and spend, and what she wants to do in the world. It may well be different to that of her father, brother or husband.

Women tend not to have a clear divide between their personal values and their own financial investing. They’re not always content to abandon their values for the sake of a dollar, instead their values often drive their choices. This sees women investing in ethical funds at higher rates than men.⁶ While Warren Buffet touted ‘value investing’ (the seeking of stocks that are undervalued), many women, particularly young ones, are declaring it wiser to align one’s financial interests with one’s personal values instead, and they are prepared to earn less to maintain this alignment. While being called a ‘do gooder’ might offend at school, for the wealthy it could be considered a badge of honour: with privilege comes responsibility. For others it’s a natural tendency, no matter how much or little they have.

As the world of ‘socially responsible’ investment has made its way into financial markets, its appeal to women has become evident. As early as 2015 (which is a long time ago in the world of finance, where trades happen in 10 milliseconds or less) the global financial services firm Morgan Stanley declared that women were ‘leading the way’. They discovered that women are nearly twice as likely as men to consider the rate of return as well as the positive impact their money might have.⁷ In particular, they are likely to prioritise social wellbeing and the environment. It’s telling that Australian Ethical, a wealth manager that only invests in companies that have a positive impact on the planet, people and animals (a mandate they’ve held since 1986), has 20 per cent more women than men as superannuation fund members.

It’s not just how women invest that’s distinct, it’s also how they spend. Women more commonly seek to buy products and services from companies they believe ‘do good’ for the world, particularly for other women. They tend to be attracted to brands that directly or indirectly promote physical and emotional wellbeing, protect and preserve the environment, provide education, care for the needy and support connected communities.⁸ It’s a long list, but as women will tell you, they can multi-task.

This all sounds very noble and of course it’s easy to point to many who don’t fit the mould, but the evidence keeps flowing in about this emerging and ultimately ‘good’ trend. One would hope it might become the current in which we all get swept along, because we’ll likely arrive in a better place.

Doing good with money is not just for the rich. Higher income earnings for women, even for the very poor, translate into greater investment in children’s education, health and nutrition.⁹ With more money in their bank accounts and greater access to the financial system, we can expect more socially conscious investing and spending. Mother Earth will be sighing with relief.

 

•    •    •

 

Historically, women have largely lived without access to money or the financial system. While France granted women the right to have their own bank accounts in 1881, it took until the 1960s for the United States to follow, with Britain taking a decade longer. Who would have thought that right into the 1980s a law in Britain allowed staff to refuse service to women prepared to spend their own money in an English pub?¹⁰ Having a bank account of one’s own was a step forward, but it’s access to credit that can really make wealth grow, which only began for women from the mid 1970s.

For many women, the opportunity to spend freely came with earning their own income. Being employed, once a sign of financial desperation, soon became a sign of a woman’s liberation. Women could gain employment and keep it, even after marriage. Coverture, which was designed to recognise married men and women as one financial entity but which in practice rendered women the property of their husbands, was being unwound, for Western women at least. Not so their sisters in the poorest nations of the world, many of whom continue to live in poverty and without control over how the little that the family has might be spent.

How women spend and invest matters. It’s the women living in countries still suffering from hunger and extreme poverty who have been identified as critical to addressing injustices. Giving women access to money and financial inclusion is considered necessary to breaking the cycle of poverty in which their families spin. It can be a matter of life and death. When a mother controls the household income her child’s survival rate increases by as much as 20 per cent.¹¹

Women are seen as the catalysts for multiplying development efforts. Micro-finance programs, which give small loans to the very poor that are otherwise excluded from financial markets, have focused on women for some time, in the hope that small change will lead to big changes. When women have had control of their loans there have been signs of hope in the launch of small businesses that provide ongoing income and higher attendance rates for kids at school. However, against all intentions it is important to note that some have become poorer through debt when their husbands have had their way and taken the credit, literally.¹²

In an attempt to cast a safety net of sorts, conditional cash transfers, where cash is provided to the poor if they meet certain requirements relating mostly to the care of their children, have been offered by the likes of the World Bank.¹³ Again they have turned their focus to women, with some families experiencing a steady source of income for the first time.

Progress in empowering women through access to financial services has been slow and the unintended consequences of programs designed to help have at times been devastating. Many women remain unpaid for their labour or have insecure jobs in factories, as domestic servants or in family businesses.¹⁴ Limited support services, such as there being nowhere for their children to go when they are working, restrict their ability to participate in education and paid employment, leaving them little hope of achieving financial independence.

The contrast with women who have been the beneficiaries of equal rights to education and employment is stark. Women are now the primary ‘breadwinners’ in at least 40 per cent of US households. In Australia, 52 per cent of women identify as the main breadwinner.¹⁵

Since 2005 women have controlled more than 50 per cent of personal wealth in America, representing US$14 trillion,¹⁶ and their share is set to grow significantly.¹⁷Considering the persistence of the gender pay gap, this might be considered a remarkable, and somewhat surprising, accomplishment. Globally, women’s wealth is growing faster than men’s, and fastest in the Asia–Pacific region. By 2020 it is estimated that women will control US$72.1 trillion globally.¹⁸

Women can spend, invest and change the world like never before. Women don’t always choose to spend, however: often they make good savers too. Figures indicate they save more than men regardless of their age and what they earn.¹⁹ This habit sets them up well for home ownership. Single women in the United States have been buying their own homes at twice the rate of their male counterparts since the mid 1990s. In Australia, women not only buy their own homes, they also own them, more than men. Good savers can cope better with mortgage stress, keeping up with payments when interest rates rise, which means that they hold on to their homes and benefit from the appreciation in value.²⁰

Compared with women, men gamble significantly more often, betting more money and comprising the majority of problem gamblers.²¹ Gambling is an addiction considered ‘out of control’ in Australia. To our shame we have the highest percentage of gamblers in the world. It’s a billion-dollar industry in which women are less likely to participate ²² and they and their families are better off for it.

There is much that women may have learned from their mothers. Women tend to take less risks with money, and as a strategy, it pays. They may not come into sudden windfalls through speculative investments but, as they say, slow and steady wins the race. On the whole, women are more willing to stay the course to reach their financial goals. They are less likely than men to risk losing all, or even a little. They don’t always do it alone, however; they seek advice and factor it into their decisions, minimising risk. ²³ As a result, their wealth grows steadily.

Even though public perceptions of younger generations focus on their penchant for disposable fashion and eating out, including avocado on toast for breakfast, studies are showing Generation Y women are more financially focused than other generations. The result is that they are even more financially independent and secure than many of the women who have gone before them.²⁴

Armed with money, women are already changing the world, whether we know it or not. New standards are being set. There’s a place we’re headed and it could be higher moral ground, a more ethical world.

 

• •    •

 

We’ve known for some time that women hold ‘purchasing power’: control and influence that are wielded through how they act as consumers. Women held this power long before having control of their own money. That power has increased to a point where big business and their designers and marketers can no longer ignore it. To do so would quite simply be bad for business.

Women do most of the spending. They don’t just spend on frivolous items for themselves, although there’s certainly some of that. They also spend on essential items, including those that might traditionally be seen as ‘male’ such as cars and computers. According to consumer analysis, women account for at least 85 per cent of all purchases and they are particularly influential with the big ones such as homes, cars and holidays.²⁵

There are category exceptions of course: men tend to spend more on porn, alcohol, cigarettes and at casinos. This is a confronting list for men and women alike, especially when they’re married. Women spend more on things they might prefer not to be known for either, such as magazines (trashy rather than dirty), beauty (it certainly isn’t all natural), haute couture and disposable fashion and shoes. But women purchase for others as well. They buy for their husband or partner, children and parents (on both sides). They also buy presents, for everyone.

Women’s yearly earnings are set to increase collectively well into the trillions. There are renewed commitments to closing the gender pay gap. One British grocery chain is facing a £4 billion equal pay claim,²⁶ the outcome of which (think of the domino effect) could see huge shifts of money and changes to personal wealth. We also have the clearing of obstacles to women’s advancement at work, meaning bigger pay packets are due. The result will be much more than a creeping growth in women’s wealth.

Considered as a market, women represent a bigger opportunity than China and India combined. They control $20 trillion in consumer spending already and indications are they will have even more to spend. Women are the primary customers of businesses big and small, and are now the coveted clients of insatiable financiers from Collins Street to Wall Street. According to Boston Consulting Group, women ‘drive the world economy’. ²⁷

It would seem women finally have currency.

You’d be forgiven for thinking the situation was otherwise. Despite remarkable strides in market power, when asked, women state that they consider themselves vastly underserved and not understood by business. Older women talk of being ‘invisible’ and younger women sometimes wish it might be true of themselves when it comes to the unwanted attention. Hashtags used on social media to identify a message on a specific topic have moved from #EverydaySexism to #MeToo and #TimesUp.

On the whole, businesses have done a poor job of serving women, their primary customers. Business leaders, designers and marketers have been slow to adapt to reality. Women use a range of goods and services that have, as a matter of course, been designed for men. Take the woman driver. She deals with cars that are difficult to manoeuvre her children in and out of. More and more ‘features’ are added to the latest models, few of which she is interested in. They’re highlighted in ads mostly pitched at men, who on the whole don’t buy cars in the numbers she does. And if she has an accident she’s more likely to get hurt, the crash tests having been conducted on dummies with male proportions.²⁸

What a way to treat the industry’s primary customers.

She shops in supermarkets that stock the essential items she wants at the back of the store, meaning the time-poor woman has to lug her children all the way round to gather the simple things she needs. Essentials will be placed high and low, and not where it suits. Then her kids will be tempted with sweets on the way out. She’s left to manage that battle as she asks, how much?

She has given her children food that she is later told is high in fat, then salt and now sugar, when everyone knows she cares about her child’s health. Portion sizes are large at the shops but they’re super-sized at the movies, even though she feeds little mouths, or just her own. Many women are single and staying that way, yet few products and services recognise the single woman’s needs.

She sits on seats that make her feel small, sometimes her feet don’t even touch the ground. She shivers at work because the air conditioning is a few degrees too cool, the international standard is based on a male, about 40 years old, a little overweight and wearing a suit.²⁹ She reaches for hooks that are too high. Sometimes she balances her bag on her lap while on the toilet even though there’s an outline of a girl on the door. She takes medications that have more adverse side-effects, because they’re generally tested on men rather than women. If this seems rather heartless then consider that she may actually be left that way: artificial hearts are designed to fit most men and only some women.³⁰ Is there no clearer way to declare which lives matter?

 

• •    •

 

There may be no truer time to claim ‘Sisters are doin’ it for themselves’, although it’s more than 30 years since Annie Lennox sang with such fervour. It’s women of Lennox’s generation who have been active champions of what is called an investment ‘gender lens’. They still invest for returns, many are savvy with money after all, but they also prioritise the benefits of their investments for women and girls. Gender-lens investing is broad and loosely defined, although growing in recognition as a mainstream practice. The ‘gender lens’ means investing in women-owned businesses, businesses that have a ‘good’ gender balance or in businesses that work to improve the lives of women and girls.

Wealthy women have helped to put gender-lens investing on the agenda. When Carol Schwartz, a prominent Australian businesswoman considered a ‘hidden’ billionaire,³¹ with more than 15,000 followers on Twitter (she only tweets about gender), declared she would only invest in companies that have the right gender balance, others listened. It’s not just her own investments, Schwartz is the co-founder of the Australian Women’s Donor Network, which advocates for greater investment in women and girls and promotes the use of the gender lens in the world of philanthropy. A virtuous cycle is in motion.

In Britain there’s Suzanne Biegal, the founder of Women Effect, considered a home for knowledge and insights about gender-lens investing. Like Schwartz, her impact is far reaching, she is also engaged in influencing the philanthropic dollar (or pound), is the founding co-chair of the Values Based Invest-ing Circle and is working on a new initiative called Women Effect Investing. The theme, and conviction, are clear.

In the United States there’s Joy Anderson, a prominent national leader working at the intersection of business and social change, who champions the gender lens too. Anderson is the president and founder of the Criterion Institute, considered to have performed some of the most ground-breaking work in the field of gender-lens investing. She gathers gender-lens investors for a yearly ‘convergence’ and importantly supports her recommendations with evidence. As we know, women like to take advice and Anderson has much to give to her eager listeners.

Cynthia Nimmo, president and CEO of the US-based Women’s Funding Network, promoted as the largest philanthropic network in the world devoted to girls (they engage with more than 100 foundations whose members invest more than US$400 million annually), confirmed that something has changed and it has to do with money when she said in a Forbes interview in February this year, ‘Women have the resources to pay for change, to direct their own movies, to do their own research, to tell their own stories, and they are doing it in droves.’

Mainstream financial markets have taken the cue. Indices and funds with a focus on gender diversity have come to market. There’s the Elevate Global Women’s Index Fund, the Gender Diversity Index, run by State Street, the third-largest asset manager in the world (and the one responsible for the Fearless Girl statue), plus the MSCI Women’s Leadership Index. MSCI boasts 97 of the top 100 global investment managers as clients.³² It’s been a long-awaited alliteration but we can finally say we have female financial markets.

 

• •    •

 

Of the things that might unite all women, menstrual periods may well be the one. For such a predictable, ordinary event they’re handled with much sensitivity and discretion. The products women require are termed ‘feminine hygiene’, implying there is something dirty or even shameful about the process. Advertising has been awkward and ‘off the mark’ more than ‘on’. There is a whole generation of Fleurs who much to their embarrassment had to share their name with a popular tampon brand of the time.

There is a serious side to this, however: as some women have no access to any products at all. In emerging nations women and girls miss school and work and are ostracised from their homes and communities due to this natural monthly occurrence. For those who do have access, the secondary impact is an inordinate amount of waste, which poses a serious threat to the environment. The fact that there has been so little innovation in this field, which affects half the world’s population, is astounding. In pure economic terms, the market is at the ready.

Finally, however, women have the power and financial opportunities to change the issue for themselves. New underwear, touted as ‘period-proof’, is the first real innovation in managing women’s periods since a man invented the tampon in the early 1930s, and it’s set to disrupt the US$15 billion ‘feminine hygiene’ market.

In the United States there’s Thinx and in Canada, Lunapads. Both were founded by women who recognised the problem, invested in R&D and successfully got new products to market. Thinx launched with a ‘Buy 1, Fund 1’ model, where each purchase resulted in a pair being supplied to a disadvantaged woman. They now have the Thinx Foundation, which addresses the issue not just by donating the product but by providing education as well. Lunapads has ‘Pads4Girls’; so far they’ve helped provide more than 17,000 girls and women in 18 nations with more than 100,000 reusable menstrual products.

In Australia there’s Modibodi, underwear designed to ‘empower’ women by dealing not only with periods but also with bladder leakage (another issue common to women, particularly if they’ve given birth). Again, the R&D phase was extensive, but the founder was confident she was onto something, and she is being richly rewarded for her efforts. Again a social conscience is at the centre of the operating model, with charity partnerships an essential part of the business proposition.

These products change lives and the reduction in waste is good for the planet. That these businesses are led by women may be of no surprise, the surprise is that their female founders can raise funds for a female-only product that’s, well, ordinary. The female market has met financial markets and it looks like the union might just be a hit.

But we can’t rest yet. There’s more with which we must deal. We cannot ignore the item that also serves to blight a woman’s environmental footprint, namely disposable (fast) fashion clothing bought on a whim because it’s on trend, and discarded soon after. This instant gratification is enjoyed only by those who can ignore the environmental impact, a high cost. There’s also the inequality of it all, with the poor so desperately in need of clothes and others, such as factory workers, risking their lives or just being exploited so that some can enjoy catwalk looks on a shoe-string budget.

We know it’s not good enough. Sweat-shops are not necessarily a way out of the cycle of poverty—in many cases they are the cycle. But some things are changing. Fast fashion is meeting what hopefully might be its match in ethical fashion and women are the ‘power players’.³³

Ethical fashion covers everything from design and production to retail and purchasing. Through its very mandate made clear in its name, it attempts to address issues of working conditions, exploitation, fair trade, sustainable production, the environment and even animal welfare. Another long list. Again, big names with lots of money have helped to introduce a new approach. Stella McCartney’s label quickly became the ‘go to’ luxury brand for those seeking environmentally friendly clothing. Her partnership with the Ethical Fashion Initiative not only ‘does good’ but has also raised the profile of what might otherwise have been considered niche.

In Australia there are brands large and small meeting the interest of this growing market. Cue, a family-owned business with strong influence from the matriarch and considered a ‘rags to riches’ Australian story, promote their accreditation by Ethical Clothing Australia. They hope others will follow suit, in a dress of course, although pants are entirely optional. Relationships with local makers are prioritised, which is often difficult in small markets, and they guarantee ethical working conditions, which is not always the case in the garment industry, even in glitzy cities.

Then there are the smaller fashion houses such as Bassike, which again has female founders. They provide the ultimate antidote to the ringing tills of global fast-fashion empires such as Zara. They’re about ‘slow’ fashion, being environmentally friendly or as they say, ‘doing it for Mother Earth’. Women are buying it. Ethical and sustainable fashion brands are not only edging into local markets, they’re also gaining international recognition and the Australian fashion industry has aspirations to be known for it.

Of course there’s much evidence of standards that should be lifted in the clothing manufacturing sector. Zara and H&M, some of the biggest culprits of the tonnes of clothes disposed of daily, have launched their own ethical fashion lines, proving there’s not just a dollar in it but something else they must tune into: the higher purpose and social conscience of their main consumers, women. It’s not only about what women choose to buy, it’s what they choose not to. Women are increasingly considered ‘discriminating’ shoppers because they seek to ensure the things they care about are supported, or at least not detrimentally impacted, by how they spend their dollars.³⁴ They even read product packaging to check sustainability, more often than men.³⁵

We’ve long known that word of mouth makes for the best endorsement and women ask, listen and act. Social media has helped them recommend and refrain in relation to their money. The Grab Your Wallet campaign, started with the #GrabYourWallet Twitter handle, called on women to shop wisely. It was started by a woman who took a particular disliking to US President Trump’s attitude to women, who couldn’t fathom that women purchased so many products related to him, she called on them to ‘grab their wallet’, ‘flex their consumer power’ and shop ‘with a clear conscience’, elsewhere. It didn’t take long to catch on: there have been more than 626 million Twitter impressions. But it wasn’t just a virtual-world thing, companies dropped Trump lines from their stores, perhaps on principle but also likely out of fear of losing their customers—women.

Women are realising that they can change the world for the better, through the power money gives them. In the arts, actresses such as Nicole Kidman (personal net worth more than US$130 million), Reece Witherspoon (more than US$120 million), Jessica Chastain (more than US$20 million) and Lena Dunham (more than US$12 million, and a millennial at that) have established their own production companies with mandates to produce films and small-screen serials with strong female characters, addressing themes that matter to women.

Female engineers, architects and designers are starting to change our cities in the numbers needed to make a real difference. They’re prioritising safety and things that matter to them and their children. They’re even changing the meat industry. You may have noticed more female butchers—women are their main customers too, and sustainable meat is a growing priority.³⁶ Even car companies have started to listen. They’re hiring women, with female designers tasked with ensuring women are offered cars they want to drive.

As the problems of our world, from equality of comforts to access to necessities, bear upon us, we must welcome this new concentration of wealth. Women have long been in waiting, and now it seems that more have the power, the privilege and most importantly the money. As ABBA said in their hit ‘Money, Money, Money’, ‘All the things I could do, / If I had a little money.’ •

 

Clare Payne is a former employment lawyer. She is the author of two books, A Matter of Trust—the Practice of Ethics in Finance and One—Valuing the Single Life (Melbourne University Publishing).

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