Ms Khan also says that for many couples in the UAE, the men tend to be the main breadwinner, so investments come out of their income, while variable expenses and the household costs come out of a woman's additional income. Ultimately, though, if men are spending on saving or investing, \"it's still spending\". “I think a lot of females still hope that the man will provide, so their money is to play with,” says Heidi-Jane Hill, a 48-year-old Briton living in Barsha who is married but financially independent after 11 years in the UAE. Her rental income, both overseas and in Dubai, supports her lifestyle, but she is also frugal in terms of bills and groceries, allowing Dh11,000 in all, with “everything spare” going into a savings account. “Working in Dubai is full on,” she adds. “I think how women let off steam is often to treat themselves to that fancy bag or blow dry. If women could see what a small change to their routine can allow them to save, maybe they would feel more empowered to think about their personal finance more.” When men get together they often discuss investments and the stock market \"and it’s kind of cool\", says Ms Hill. “Women on the whole just don’t do that,\" she adds. Ms McGregor urges women in the UAE, particularly expatriates, to give “serious thought” to their pension provision, which can be “adversely affected” by years away from their home country. Women in their 60s in the UK, for example, have an average of just £51,100 (Dh235,600) in their private pension pots while men have more than three times as much - £156,500, according to UK retirement research body the Pensions Policy Institute (PPI) in what it calls the \"part-time pension penalty\". And when it comes to women setting up their own businesses, Ms Boden of the UK's Starling Bank says it is “no wonder” that investment in female-founded start-ups is so low, when investors of both genders are being taught that women are less reliable with money. Female founders received just 2.2 per cent of the $130 billion of venture capital funding made last year, according to the Pitchbook private capital database, a global financial data and software company. Yet Heather Henyon, founder of the Women’s Angel Investor Network (Wain), an investor network for females in the Mena region, says women have demonstrated to her they are “solid investors”. Wain targeted women investors when it launched six years ago, she says, as it was investing in female founders. But having women investors has proven to be a surprising factor in the “strong investor returns” Wain has since enjoyed, with its portfolio performing at an average (although unrealised) threefold return. Ms Malhotra, who runs her own financial management consultancy and lives in the Springs in Dubai, says she started investing by experimenting with buying into companies’ initial public offerings (IPOs) straight out of university in Delhi in the early 1990s, like everyone else in her workplace. “During lunch, the whole office, both men and women, would actively discuss avenues of savings,” she says. “Individual IPOs weren’t a wise thing to do but we were young. I made some good investments and one or two bad. ICICI Bank has done well - I bought for 100 rupees and get good dividends still.” She stopped investing for several years when she had her daughter, now 24, but these days Ms Malhotra is back in the market, buying exchange-traded funds (ETFs) rather than individual stocks. She still occasionally dabbles in stocks, recently buying 1,000 shares in General Electric when they dropped to $12.88. One way for women to dip their toes into the water would be to set up an investment club, advises Ms McGregor. It would provide both a challenge and an education, and is an “excellent way” to learn about investing without risking huge amounts of money. Would-be investors tend to put in Dh300-Dh400 a month each, then meet every few weeks to agree how to invest the pot. After all, she says, women are “inherently more social creatures” so meeting other women to chat about money, the very thing Ms Malhotra and Ms Hill say doesn’t tend to happen, would be a better way to spend an hour than going shopping - even with a money-off coupon.","publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"The National","url":"https://www.thenationalnews.com","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://www.thenationalnews.com/pf/resources/images/logo_rectangle.png?d=279"}},"articleSection":"Money","keywords":["Edinburgh Business School at Heriot-Watt university","Dubai","Heriot-Watt university","Rasheda Khatun Khan","Starling Bank","Heather McGregor","venture capital funding","ICICI Bank","female-founded start-ups","Edinburgh Business School","heriot-watt university","bank","Deepti Malhotra","Anne Boden","Business","United Arab Emirates","General Electric","Pensions Policy Institute","personal finance","Financial Advice","Delhi","United Kingdom","Personal Finance","challenger bank","Heather Henyon","Heidi-Jane Hill","Warwick Business School","Article"],"description":"While some have no investment portfolio at all, others prefer to go shopping than think about their futures","thumbnailUrl":"https://thenational-the-national-prod.cdn.arcpublishing.com/resizer/0Cxr3RTLQI5hz3fXT1ORMlzXkck=/400x267/filters:format(jpg):quality(70)/cloudfront-eu-central-1.images.arcpublishing.com/thenational/S6ETRITQE2NZ2BVBBHFMW5QXL4.jpg","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://www.thenationalnews.com/business/money/why-women-are-failing-to-invest-their-money-1.891587"}}