Everyone has their own personality, has particular strengths and weaknesses, likes and dislikes.

And yet there are some things that women and men typically differ from - at least in tendency - and sometimes significantly.

This also applies to the important topic of financial investments, as the results of a representative survey by the Quirin private bank now show.

To this end, Plus Marktforschung surveyed 2,077 people aged between 16 and 70 in Germany.

Kerstin Papon

Editor in Business.

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Accordingly, men in particular enjoy investing and women are more afraid of it.

Worries about loss, about doing wrong, and ignorance are major obstacles.

As a result, women invest less often on average, save less and are generally much more security-oriented than men.

Unfortunately, the results were to be expected and corresponded to experience from consulting practice, says Carolin Nawroth, investment advisor at Quirin Privatbank.

A good half of the female respondents (54 percent) would not have invested any money at the moment, which is "terrifying".

Among men, this applies to 37 percent.

The higher the education and income, the more likely it is that women have assets.

Financial education is important for investment decisions, says Konrad Wessner from Puls Marktforschung.

This is the same low nationwide, regardless of gender.

However, women and men assess their financial education differently: “A man reads a specialist article about investing and thinks he knows everything.

To put it bluntly, a woman reads five books about investing and still thinks she doesn't know enough to get started.” According to the survey, women perceive financial issues to be much more complex and stressful than men.

It is not uncommon for there to be a lack of money

The money is often still parked in the checking account.

On average, every sixth man and every eleventh woman has more than 10,000 euros here.

In uncertain times like these, this is hardly surprising.

The reason given by about half of all respondents is that they always want to get hold of the money.

This is followed by the fear of risks, the worry of doing something wrong, the assumption of not knowing which investment is the right one and not knowing enough about it.

In total, 83 percent of the women surveyed and 60 percent of the men cited these reasons.

When asked why money is not invested, 60 percent of women and men, regardless of gender, stated that there was no money to invest.

"We live in challenging times, many people are suffering from inflation and the explosion in energy prices," says Wessner.

However, the number is really high.

According to the Federal Statistical Office (Destatis), the inflation rate in Germany was 10.4 percent in October.

In addition, many women are likely to be paid less than men as a rule.

According to data from Destatis, women in Germany will earn an average of 18 percent less per hour than men in 2021, which is the same as in 2020.

When women invest money, they prefer to use call money.

This is what 44 percent of respondents say, 42 percent rely on funds and 35 percent on savings accounts.

Even if many investment interest rates have risen again due to the key interest rate hikes by the European Central Bank, the bottom line is a big minus.

According to FMH-Finanzberatung, daily allowance currently yields a national average of 0.38 percent.

The range of offers ranges from zero to 1.6 percent.

"Savings account and overnight money bring hardly any returns, funds are often very expensive - that means that women are giving away potential returns here," says Nawroth.

There's still room for improvement.

Inexpensive ETFs, for example, are better than expensive funds.

Among the men, they remained and came in third place with a share of 36 percent after funds and individual stocks (37 percent each).

Men are securities investors, women are more classic interest and savings book savers, says wealth expert Nawroth.

Therefore, in the past few years of low interest rates, they were particularly at a disadvantage in terms of the returns achieved. The aim must be to encourage women to invest in securities so that they too can benefit from high long-term returns.

It is also true that their cautious and perhaps dovish behavior is less of a disadvantage in times of low inflation than it is at present.

According to Destatis 2020, the average inflation rate was just 0.5 percent, compared to 1.4 percent in the pre-corona year 2019.

The following answer found a top position: "I don't want to have to worry about my money," say 69 percent of women and 57 percent of men with regard to finances and investments.

However, 31 percent of the latter enjoy investing, while only 13 percent of women say so.

They find financial topics boring far more often and, compared to men, prefer personal advice.

Certainly not a bad idea either: a good half of those surveyed want to have as much of the money as possible themselves and also want to treat themselves to something.