Female clients willing to spend less to fight hard times

Women are more receptive to cutting back on spending than men and are more willing to work with an advisor to manage the current financial crisis, a report from Desjardins Financial Security suggests.

An autumn survey of more than 1,150 Canadians found that more than 50% of women were expecting to postpone their retirement by an average of six years due to their depleted retirement savings.

Further data from the survey suggests women are not capitulating. More women than men were found to favour the tried-and-true methods of reducing personal spending and increasing savings to bolster their nest egg.

“Women are more determined to make changes than what we’ve seen in previous years when we’ve conducted this survey,” says Karrina Dusablon, director, education centre and global management, at Desjardins Financial Security.

The savings rate of women is virtually the same as that of men, Dusablon says, but women are willing to make more sacrifices in their spending. For example, on a small thing like packing a lunch versus eating out, 69% of women said they would bring lunch from home rather than eat at a restaurant, versus 25% of men who said they would sacrifice eating out.

In addition, 84% of women respondents would postpone a major purchase to avoid relying on financing or credit, and 79% are going to take less expensive vacations.

Where women will not scrimp is on their spending for children’s activities. There is a massive gap between the sexes in the prioritizing of this. Six out of 10 women refuse to cut down on the amount of money they spend on children’s activities, whereas this expenditure doesn’t rank high for men at all, with more than seven out of 10 men willing to reduce the amount they spend on their children.

When it comes to attitudes toward retirement, there is also a gender gap, although it’s smaller.

“Only 20% of women versus 27% of men have little or no interest in preparing for retirement, and only 31% of women versus 37% of men said they were not interested in knowing how much they needed to save for retirement,” Dusablon says.

Only 17% of women said they were sad about retiring, versus nearly a third of male respondents.

More men hope to delay their departure from the workforce, whereas women are keen to retire earlier,” Dusablon says.

A common perception is that women are more likely to seek the services of financial advisors; however, Desjardins’ survey found that there was virtually no statistical difference in men and women seeking professional advice, although it does appear that women are more apt to trust the intentions of a financial advisor.

“Women are not relying on their spouses and parents for financial help. They want to know they are going to be okay in the future. When it comes to using an advisor, the percentage of women who do is very close to the same percentage as men — it’s not statistically significant,” Dusablon says. “Only 45% of women are worried about their advisors’ only being concerned with selling them product, while 53% of men are worried that their financial advisor is just out to sell them product.”

(01/26/09)