Most Women Lack Confidence in Managing Finances, per RIA Survey

While most surveyed women said they lacked assurance in fiscal matters, their confidence increased once they took charge of household financial decisions, according to a new study from Beacon Pointe Advisors LLC, a female-founded registered investment advisory firm.

The firm’s HerWorth study surveyed more than 10,000 women investors from late 2025 through early 2026 and found that only 31% of respondents said they felt highly confident managing their finances. Women who said they lead financial decisionmaking in their households were nearly three times more likely to report high confidence (36%) than those not involved in financial decisions (13%), according to the report.

These findings represent a growing opportunity for plan advisers, stated Shannon Eusey, Beacon Pointe’s co-founder and chair, in an email to PLANADVISER.

“The goal should not simply be to give women more information or tell them what to do. It should be to bring them into the decisionmaking process, help them understand the trade-offs, and show them how the choices they make today connect to the life they want in retirement,” Eusey wrote. “The opportunity is to help women distinguish between the cash they truly need for near-term security and the money that could potentially be put to work toward retirement and other long-term goals.”

According to the report, among surveyed women with portfolios worth more than $500,000, 63% had more than $100,000 uninvested, highlighting the possibility that women may also have an uncertainty about what percentage of their assets should be saved and invested.

Additionally, nearly half (47%) of women surveyed had not yet planned for the care of aging parents, and 32% had not yet built an estate plan.

The survey’s findings showed that retirement was the most common investment topic (41%) with which respondents said they wanted help, while 38% showed interest in help with investment management, and 35% wanted help with estate planning.

The report also found that 38% of women working with a financial adviser reported high financial confidence—far more than among women who did not have an adviser relationship (24%).

“Women with an adviser report less anxiety and greater awareness of their portfolios, and trust grows when an adviser combines expertise with an understanding of the woman’s life,” Eusey wrote. “To me, that is the opportunity: not simply managing money, but reducing the mental load around money so women have the clarity to make better decisions.”

The report was released ahead of National Women’s Retirement Security Day on July 14, an observance intended to raise awareness of retirement savings challenges facing women.

According to Vanguard’s 2026 , the average female balance of $146,476 in Vanguard’s defined contribution plans was about 25% lower than the average male balance of $194,597; the female median balance ($42,139) was about 20% lower than the male median balance ($52,309).

“Women are not thinking about retirement in a vacuum. They are thinking about whether they have enough, whether their money is working hard enough, how to care for family members, how to plan for longevity and how to make good decisions without sacrificing the security they have worked so hard to build,” stated Eusey.