The Minister of Women’s Affairs, Hon Georgina te Heuheu, today welcomed the release of ground breaking research on women’s access to finance, their share of assets and their relative wealth.

The Minister said “Women’s economic status is crucial for the well-being of individuals, families and communities. The Equal Worth research shows that women’s average wealth holdings are less than men’s and this indicates that more needs to be done to enable women to achieve equality with men.”

“Research like the Equal Worth project will make a valuable contribution. The findings of this research will be used to further women’s economic opportunities and encourage long and short term financial planning. It will also be used to further encourage financial institutions to better target their financial services to women” the Minister said.

The Equal Worth: Women’s Economic Status Report examines differences in asset holdings by men and women in Australia and New Zealand and measures their different attitudes to savings and investment.

The Equal Worth research was undertaken by the Australian Commonwealth / State and New Zealand Advisers for the Status of Women and funded by the Activities Trust Fund administered by that group.

The objectives of the research were to:

 establish the relative economic wealth of women and men
 to compare levels of awareness about the available options men and women had to achieve economic security in the future; and
 to ascertain their levels of satisfaction with current sources of information.

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