Preliminary Programme

I examine the portfolio allocations of women married in the years surrounding the 1870 Married Women’s Property Act. The Act, which gave women married after 1870 the right to own and control personal property, serves as a natural experiment to examine the extent to which individuals respond to changes in property law. I link wealth data to census information and find that, as a result of the Act, women married after 1870 altered their portfolio allocations by shifting wealth-holding away from real property to personal property. The results indicate that the Act of 1870 greatly impacted the investment portfolio allocations of women married after the Act. (Show less)

Under the Austrian law, women were allowed to act independently, but they partly lost their autonomy in consequence of the Unification when a new legal system came into force. To what extent women living in Milan and belonging to the elite continued to manage their business is the first issue the paper will focus on. Secondly, attention will be drawn on the investment they did, attempting to estimate the amount of money they put on public and private stocks and bonds. Lastly, women’s’ role in the urban credit supply will thoroughly discussed in order to point out their contribute to the industrialization process (Show less)

A newspaper article in 2004 commented that women “could learn a thing or two” on equity investment (Observer, June 20th): their natural caution- the “nesting instinct” of the title- made them unduly cautious. Risk avoidance meant that they also avoided the rewards of more daring male investors. The object of the present paper is to look at historical evidence provided by women’s investment behaviour as a contribution to the debate about the difference between male and female attitudes to risk.

Evidence from the 18th century (Berg, Hill) shows women owning property which they used for rental income. The late 18th and early 19th centuries produced a growing number of alternatives to property and private lending, which were taken up by women as well as men. Government securities –loan stock- became increasingly important (Green & Owens).. From the early 18th century, shares in joint-stock companies offered an alternative investment (Laurence, Carlos, Bowen, Hudson). By the end of the 19th century, investors were faced with a very wide range of choice, in terms of different securities and different sectors There were also savings banks and friendly societies which were open to small savers as well as to the more affluent.

A number of characteristics of women’s investments are discussed, based on the empirical work so far carried out by Maltby and Rutterford 2005, notably, family connections; types of securities held; types of company preferred; and motive for investment. Women’s investment choice was also arguably heavily influenced by the recommendations of family members or advisers. The need for steady income might in principle be expected to favour the choice of low-risk investments – debentures, preference shares and perhaps also family companies rather than unfamiliar investments further afield. However, the rise in the cost of living towards the end of the period may have forced women to seek higher yield by taking on more investment risk (Robb).

There is a question, however, about the distinctiveness of women’s approach to risk. For example, contemporary researchers have found evidence that women exhibit more risk aversion than men, vis-à-vis pensions (Sunden and Surette, Bajtelsmit and Bernasek, Van der Hei and Olsen). However, there is historic evidence that male investors also avoided risk, by choosing debentures (Jeffreys) or property, savings banks or local companies (Michie). This echoes the view taken by contemporary writers such as Schubert et al, who argue that women’s attitude to risk should not be examined out of context. Women’s investment choice may not have been solely due to a particular attitude to risk. One important element in women’s choices may have been their precarious financial position. Other factors may have included their level of financial education and their marital status, as evidenced by writers such as Sunden and Surette, Gerrans and Clark-Murphy, and Dwyer, Gilkeson and List, studying women’s investment choices today. Further research is needed to gain a fuller picture of the environment in which women investors have operated in the past and the way in which they adapted themselves to it. (Show less)

Cultural histories of the bourgeois home emphasise the importance of privacy and insulation from the world, particularly for women who were regarded as the “angel in the home”. However, this insulation could only be achieved by engaging with the world of money and was therefore underpinned by a range of financial flows that linked the household to the wider economy. This paper explores these material relations, focussing on the assets that households accrued to ensure their ability to maintain a bourgeois lifestyle even in old age. It uses evidence from a variety of sources to suggest that the quest for security was translated into a variety of forms of investment, notably in government securities. These investments effectively funded the national debt, and as such middle class men and women were actively drawn into government finances through their involvement as fundholders. Other forms of investment were also important, notably real and leasehold property for women, and involvement in business for men. For women these differences emphasise the constraints on entering the public world of work, and the importance of other, less visible forms of making money. (Show less)

This research examines the role of female wealth holders as active economic agents between c.1890 and c.1950 in the New Zealand cities of Wellington and Dunedin. It addresses the relationship between women’s wealth decision making and their engagement with a range of types of social capital and networks, and challenges the assumption that women were marginal to wealth processes in the historical urban setting. By drawing on a range of public and private sources, including probate records, wills, biographical details and personal papers, it seeks to understand the ways in which women negotiated agency, ownership and control of wealth in new urban settings on the margins of empire.

Specifically, this paper will review the ways in which women in New Zealand strategically managed their wealth by drawing on a range of investments and other financial strategies. Using case studies from Wellington and Dunedin to highlight a range of investment types and amounts, it will discuss the ways in which the context of historical urban New Zealand affected women’s wealth holding and their opportunity for wealth, the institutional structures and social norms that constrained and enabled women’s wealth decision making, and the importance of social networks and social capital to the investment and financial decision making process. (Show less)