Gender Difference in Investment Decision Making: Evidence from Ghana

Investment decisions have mainly been described as a man's world. The impact of culture has marginalised mainly women in areas where men are perceived as front liners. One of such areas is the making of investment decisions. However, in recent times, the debate on the participation of women in investment activities and decisions have gained much attention. This research seeks to investigate gender difference in investment decision making in terms of financial risk tolerance, financial literacy and types of investment among EAIS Ghana employees. The research is a descriptive research design with 100 working-class men and women randomly selected from a population of 125 at EAIS institution to answer survey questions. The researcher used an independent sample t-test in SPSS v 22. The research concludes that there is a significant gender difference for both risk tolerance and financial literacy among EAIS employees in Ghana. It is therefore recommended that women must be more aware of the difficulties preventing them from investing in riskier securities. Furthermore, Security and Exchange Commission, in collaboration with Bank of Ghana, must enforce the policy that ensures that only certified investment managers can give employees professional investment advice as this will boost the confidence of employees, particularly women.