Whereas Ms Andersson argued that in Scandinavia official laws were not necessary, she added that countries such as the UK that do not offer the same support networks may have to consider enforcing quotas to get the desired result of more equality.
Even though the distribution of wealth between genders has yet to be recognised as even in most of the world, a steady increase of female success stories in the past decade has led financial advisers to consider more of them as potential clients.
On this topic the report said the assumption that women were risk averse was old-fashioned and must be ignored by financial advisers. It said: “The interviews conducted by Wealthmonitor showed that women did not necessarily see risk differently, or want to be approached in a very different manner than their male counterparts.
“Whether a person is more or less prone to take risks in their career and with their investments is often down to other factors than gender, such as age, professional and cultural background and previous experience. For advisers to assume that women have less tolerance towards risk can mean they miss out on clients who decide to go elsewhere for advice that they feel is more suitable for a woman of today.”
One of the interviewees that featured in the report was Anna Sofat, founder of London-based Addidi Wealth. As a financial adviser who has experienced dealing with many female clients, she urged her peers not to resort to stereotyping, particularly as women have grown much less risk averse in the past 10 years.
She said: “I think it is changing. There is sometimes an element of money that they would perhaps ring fence and not want to take risk with, and that tends to be around their children and their home. But outside of that I think there are plenty of women who are comfortable with taking risks.”
Daniel Liberto is a features writer of Financial Adviser
Key points
■ More must be done to make gender equality a regular fixture in modern-day society.
■ The top three countries with the most female board of director representatives were Norway, Finland and Sweden.
■ In the UK women make up only 19 per cent of FTSE 100 directors.
