Shelley Palman: EnableMe Financial Advisor on the new research revealing women are more financially literate than men

Research showing Kiwi women are more financially literate than men suggests they could be more confident about money.

Financial Services Council statistics show 66 percent of women answered three or more literacy questions correctly, compared to 57 percent of men. 

But women saw themselves as less knowledgeable. 

EnableMe Financial Advisor Shelley Palman says literacy doesn't always translate into action - so women aren't necessarily better off. 

"This actually stems from fear - and what it does is it leads to less risk-taking." 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Right now, it is official? Can we women are better
with money than men? The Financial Services Council ask questions
on financial literacy and found sixty six percent of women
answered the questions correctly, blokes fifty seven percent. Despite this,
they found that women are less confident in their financial
decision making. Shelley Pelman is the financial advisor and enable me.

(00:21):
She's with me.

Speaker 2 (00:21):
Hi, Shelley, Hi, Ryan, thanks for having me.

Speaker 1 (00:24):
Good to have you here. So basically, would that not
mean that women would be better off financially than men?

Speaker 2 (00:31):
You would think so that literacy doesn't necessarily translate into confidence.

Speaker 1 (00:38):
So what action? So what's the confidence issue?

Speaker 2 (00:42):
Yeah? I think the confidence issue I think speaks to
a women's innate need for security, and I think this
actually stems from fear. And what it does is it
leads to less risk taking. And we see that across
the board, not just in terms of financial kind of sex.
We see that in terms of the workforce and other

(01:02):
risks that they might take. And not taking a risk
can lead to obviously not getting that reward from taking
that risk. So self doubt, you know, no self doubt.

Speaker 1 (01:14):
It's interesting because I was thinking about this today. You know,
men take risks for good and bad. Right, we take
risk financially, but then we take dumb risks on the
roads and we end up wrapping ourselves around a lamp post.
You know, it's almost built into us that risk taking behavior,
isn't it.

Speaker 2 (01:30):
It is? And women just don't send to back themselves
as much as men, you know, And I think with
this literacy piece, they're they're feeling that need to arm
themselves with information upstill themselves in that financial space because
you know, they want to know how they can play
the financial game here in New Zealand. But hey, there's
still that missing link of actually taking action and that confidence.

Speaker 1 (01:51):
I wonder if you if you subtract a little bit
of knowledge and add a little bit of you know,
does does one sort of compromise the other? If men
were smarter with you know, with their financial literacy, would
they be as as aggressive and outgoing and confident?

Speaker 2 (02:09):
Do you know that sometimes people arm themselves with too
much information And we see this here it enablement, you know,
we see that analysis paralysis thing sometimes coming in. You know,
they arm themselves with all this information, but they're so
overwhelmed by said information that they don't actually do anything.

Speaker 1 (02:23):
Yeah, yeah, good point, Shelley. Thank you for that interesting discussion.
Shelley Pullman the financial advisor to enable.

Speaker 2 (02:29):
Me for more from Heather Duplessy Allen Drive.

Speaker 1 (02:32):
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