Women and wealth

What a turnabout. Half a century ago feminism was all about celebrating women's success. There was huge excitement about women's progress in achieving rewards and riches in what was once a man's world. The media was cock-a-hoop about how well we were doing, breaking through those glass ceilings to bring in the big bucks.

What happened? At some point the Powers That Be decided it was in women's interests to play down this success. The public narrative is now all about women being badly off, struggling to survive in this dog-eat-dog world where men still come out on top.

Now all we ever hear about is downtrodden women needing assistance to cope with their unfair treatment. Homeless women. Poverty-stricken women living on meagre pensions or insufficient superannuation. Oppressed, disadvantaged, and always, always in need of more financial support.

Sure, there are many women in trouble. But the relentless moaning is actually a cover for a far bigger story. The truth that is being strenuously downplayed is that, overall, women will soon be sitting pretty, right on top in the wealth stakes.

"Women will soon have more money than men for the first time in history!" trumpeted Fortune magazine last week , explaining that women are on the verge of controlling the majority of personal wealth. "The unprecedented transfer of wealth to women is projected to reach $30 trillion in the next decade," said author Sara Lomelin, quickly passing over this extraordinary news to gloat about an imagined boom in philanthropy with generous women in charge.

In Australia, women's ship has also come in. A recent report by JB Were – The Growth of Women and Wealth - predicts a "tsunami" of inheritance heading in women's direction. The wealth management company estimates women will inherit $3.2 trillion in the next decade, mainly due to longer-living wives inheriting from husbands.

But even when the wealth is transferred to the next generation, for some reason oldest daughters will benefit the most, say these experts.

Of course, women stand to gain not just through the death of their wealthy partners, but also as a result of divorcing them. JB Were looked at the approximately 10,000 High Net Worth couples who divide their assets each year and estimated that would result in a $30 billion asset pool converting to roughly $15 billion in the hands of the women. Not bad, eh?

In May 2023, Andrew (Twiggy) Forrest was the second richest person in Australia. Or so it seemed. But any man who has been through the family law system will tell you that a man's grip on his assets is tenuous at best. After Twiggy and his wife split and the family law system had done its thing, he tumbled down the Rich List, dropping to Number 10 and he was overtaken by a new entrant - his wife, who entered at Number 8.

Nicola Forrest entered the Rich List for the first time ranked eighth overall, becoming Australia's third-richest woman, with a $14.6 billion fortune. Nice work if you can get it…..

The key point is that much of the wealth nominally owned by men in fact belongs to their wives – as soon as these women decide to get rid of them.