"Beat the market!" or "Take care of your savings": Can language in bank advertisements influence women's attitudes towards finance? An experimental comparison of different - inclusive - languages to counter the gender gap in finance

Valeria Amata Giannella, Claudia Manzi, Eleonora Crapolicchio and Henriette Prast

Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), 2025, vol. 117, issue C

Abstract: Women tend to invest less than men and are less likely to accumulate wealth over time. Research suggests that financial discourse in the media predominantly targets men (Prast et al., 2018), potentially contributing to gender disparities in investment behaviour. We present two experimental studies conducted in Italy to examine whether modifying financial discourses can enhance women’s engagement with investments. Study 1 (N = 401 workers) tested the impact of different types of metaphors (stereotypically masculine vs stereotypically feminine vs neutral) used in financial advertising, on attitudes and intentional behaviours. Study 2 (N = 206 workers) explored the effects of a mixed-inclusive language, using both masculine and feminine metaphors simultaneously. Results indicate that mixed-inclusive communication improves both attitudes and behavioural intentions in women and men.

Keywords: Gender; Financial behaviours; Attitudes towards finance; Advertising metaphors (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2214804325000655
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:soceco:v:117:y:2025:i:c:s2214804325000655

DOI: 10.1016/j.socec.2025.102399

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics) is currently edited by Pablo Brañas Garza

More articles in Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics) from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().