Women still account for less than one-quarter of the Australian financial advice profession, having seen no growth in the past 12 months.
Wealth Data analysis demonstrates that just 22 per cent of all financial advisers on the ASIC Financial Advisers Register (FAR) are female, compared to 23 per cent in September 2023.
Breaking this down by business model, financial planning – the largest model with a focus on holistic advice – averages at 22 per cent for female advisers.
Among firms with more than 100 advisers, only two have more than 30 per cent female advisers, Wealth Data found, while five have less than 20 per cent.
“For as long as I have been involved in financial planning, there has been a call to have more female advisers, as financial planning had always been dominated by males. Unfortunately, not much has changed despite the best efforts of many,” remarked Colin Williams, founder and director of Wealth Data.
The advice business model with the largest proportion of women is the accounting – limited advice sector at 38 per cent. However, this cohort mainly consists of advisers focused on self-managed superannuation fund (SMSF) administration with just 491 advisers in total, including 186 women.
Super fund-based advice had the second highest percentage of female advisers at 33 per cent. Wealth Data pointed out that two specific funds have achieved an approximate 50 per cent male-female split, but these were unnamed.
The accounting – financial planning model has 25 per cent women, while the investment advice sector, primarily represented by firms like Macquarie and Shaw and Partners, has the lowest female representation at just 17 per cent. Wealth Data noted that some firms in this cohort have under 10 per cent women.
In terms of new advisers, 29 per cent of the current 430 provisional advisers are women. Moreover, 28 per cent of all advisers who started from 1 January 2019 and are active on the FAR are women.
Research from Future IM/Pact in August found that within advisory teams at wealth management firms, women comprise just 25 per cent of roles and men account for 75 per cent. Just 19 per cent of advisers are women and 13 per cent of senior advisers are women, it found, although there is strong female representation in the more junior role of senior associate at 49 per cent.
Key barriers preventing women from progressing further in the wealth space include lengthy career progression clashing with family planning, lack of female role models, and insufficient endorsement and sponsorship.
To address these obstacles, Future IM/Pact encouraged the industry to support grassroot female talent from the university level and fast-track experienced female hires into advisory roles.
Earlier this year, Financial Advice Association Australia chief executive Sarah Abood observed that 72 per cent of its membership is male, with the percentage of female members increasing “very, very slowly”.
