Family, Values, and Women in Finance

Abstract

About 18% of Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) members are women, which is well below the percentage of workers who are women around the world. To gain insights into why women represent a relatively low percentage of investment professionals, we survey the 2016 CFA membership, which consists of about 135,000 members in 151 countries. We document that female CFA members are less tradition and conformity-oriented and more achievement-oriented than both male CFA members and women in the general population. This suggests that gender-specific barriers discourage women from entering the CFA professions. One possible barrier is that finance is a profession that disproportionately rewards those who work long and inflexible hours. Women face greater time obligations outside of work. Thus female CFA members express a stronger desire to recapture time from work than male CFA members. Woman CFA members desire more time outside of work when they are married, have children, or are older and value tradition. In sharp contrast to these results, family circumstances and valuing tradition do not affect male CFA members’ desire for more time.

Keywords: Finance; Women; CFA; Investment Industry; Values; Tradition; Selection

JEL Classification: J16; J22; G00; G20