A Comparative Study on Investment Behaviour of Women Investors

This dissertation presents a comprehensive comparative study on the investment behavior of women investors in Berlin, Germany, and Pune, India. The research delves into various aspects, including financial planning, investment patterns, influencing factors, and risk assessment. It explores the differences in investment approaches, cultural influences, and financial capabilities of women in these two metropolitan cities. The study examines the types of investment options available, the importance of financial planning, and the impact of individual investor profiles. Through a literature review, methodology, data analysis, and conclusion, the dissertation aims to identify the key factors that shape the investment decisions of women investors and provide insights for improving financial planning and mitigating investment risks. The research also incorporates SWOT analysis to evaluate potential threats and weaknesses and offers a comparative analysis of the investment behaviors in the two cities.

Running head: A COMPARATIVE STUDY ON INVESTMENT BEHAVIOUR OF WOMEN
INVESTORS IN BERLIN, GERMANY AND PUNE, INDIA
A Comparative Study on Investment Behaviour of Women Investors in Berlin, Germany and Pune,
India
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author’s Note

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A COMPARATIVE STUDY ON INVESTMENT BEHAVIOUR OF WOMEN INVESTORS IN
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Acknowledgement
I would like to thank my University and the professor for allowing me to contribute as well as
providing opportunity to complete my research despite of all challenges that I have faced. It will not
forget the efforts that are made by the professors and other for guiding me with patience, guidance
and understanding. I would not have completed this research without their guidance and
understanding and you are all special to me.

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A COMPARATIVE STUDY ON INVESTMENT BEHAVIOUR OF WOMEN INVESTORS IN
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Abstract
This research has focused on the comparative study on the investment behaviour of women investors
in Berlin, Germany and Pune, India. The primary chapter is the introduction which centres out the
common data around the thought in topic with the research. The targets of the research for the most
part has been talked around in this distribute another to the research restrictions. Other than, it in
change highlights the research questions close to point and targets of the research. Insides the second
chapter, it contain of composing arrange which centres out the components that are to be tended to
internal parts the research. It interface of openings and threats interfacing evaluation of competitive
advantage and techniques for moving forward the execution. In chapter three, it highlights the
methodology which centres out the strategies through which the research has been conducted. It sets
the considering, approach, and organize, data collection method and test of the research around sheds
light. The fourth chapter joins the results around and disclosures where the results about around are to
be studied and checked on as per the current circumstance which it highlights the looking over,
assessment, openings, threats and competitive procedure. Inside the final chapter, it deals with the
conclusion adjoining recommendation and utilization with the concluding thoughts have been said at
the side tending to the goals and certain recommendation.

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Table of Contents
Chapter 1: Introduction..........................................................................................................................6
1.1 Background Information..............................................................................................................6
1.2 Research Topic............................................................................................................................8
1.3 Research Aim..............................................................................................................................8
1.4 Research Questions......................................................................................................................8
1.5 Research Objectives.....................................................................................................................8
1.6 Hypothesis...................................................................................................................................9
Chapter 2: Literature Review...............................................................................................................10
2.1 Comparative analysis of investment behavior of the women investors in Pune, India and Berlin,
Germany..........................................................................................................................................10
2.2 Investment Behavior of the women investors in Pune, India.....................................................12
2.3 Investment Behavior of the women investors in Berlin, Germany.............................................13
Chapter 3: Methodology......................................................................................................................15
3.1 Research Design........................................................................................................................15
3.2 Research Philosophy..................................................................................................................15
3.3 Research Methods......................................................................................................................15
3.4 Sampling Methods.....................................................................................................................15
3.5 Sample Size...............................................................................................................................16
3.6 Limitation..................................................................................................................................16
3.7 Data collection Method..............................................................................................................16
3.8 Data analysis Techniques...........................................................................................................16

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3.9 Ethical Issues.............................................................................................................................16
Chapter 4: Data analysis......................................................................................................................18
4.1 Primary data analysis.................................................................................................................18
4.2 Secondary data analysis.............................................................................................................29
Chapter 5: Conclusion and recommendation.......................................................................................31
References...........................................................................................................................................35

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Chapter 1: Introduction
Financial investment is aimed at delivering financial security to the investors. Financial
market plays the catalyst role to accelerate the investment activities. Stock, bond and mortgage are the
fundamental tools through which the investors initiate their investment process. Investments can bring
potential impacts on the well-being of the investors. Women today, are capable of making investment
in bank deposits, gold, provident funds, real estate and post office. A considerable portion of the
workforce now belongs to the women employees. Many financial investments in terms of
professionally and personally, get controlled by women. This in turn, makes the women to be more
focused on the financial investment. Women are interested in enhancing the return on their investment
through different avenues. In this way, both the present and future expectation can be achieved. With
the growing autonomy in the decision making power, women are now playing a catalyst role in
accelerating the socio-economic growth of a nation. Earning money can provide the financial
independence, but it does not provide financial assurance (Sashikala and Chitramani 2017).
Meanwhile, circumstances are different for women across the sample countries. The study is aimed at
comparing the difference situations for the women investors hailed from Pune, India and Berlin,
Germany. Pune and Berlin are the metropolitan cities of Indian and Germany respectively. The
standard of living of these two cities is comparatively high combined with high per capita income. In
this regard, the comparative analysis illustrates the difference in the investment pattern of the women.
1.1 Background Information
Initially the role of the women is restricted to the limited boundary of the household sector.
They are not allowed to participate in the professional workforce and they are not even allowed to
take education. Meanwhile, the importance of the women education gets realized by the society. In
nowadays, they are highly qualified and are engaged in the important professional fields. In the
context of the financial market, the role of the women investors is highly appreciable (Fraune 2015).
Data reveals that a great percentage of working women is continuously increasing in the advanced
cities, including Berlin and Germany. It is observed that culture is the influencing factor for the
financial investment. Indian culture is the traditional nature. People in Pune prefer to follow the
traditional saving investment method, like, savings in bank deposit, post office and national savings
paper. As a result, most of the Indian women like to follow traditional investment process which is
embedded with less risky factors (Calcagnini, Ferrand and Giombini 2015). Indian women
emphasizes on the long-term investment process as to protect their family and children.
On the other hand, the investors in Berlin are influenced by the advanced culture. Investors
are risk lovers. They intend to earn huge profit in return of the small size of the investment (Marinelli,
Mazzoli and Palmucci 2017). Women also structure the investment process which will give them
relatively large return amount. Sensitivity of the investment to liquidity is further subject to the

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financing constraints. As Berlin is a part of a developed country, the per capita income is greater than
that of the people of Pune. Irrespective of the geographical and cultural differences, all good investors
are aimed at improving the return through an effective balance between risk and return ( Insler,
Compton and Schmitt 2016). It has been observed that India has been experiencing a growing
participation rate of the women. As far as the IMF report is concerned, the existing women labor force
can intensify India’s 30% GDP as compared to men. The matured performance of the women labor is
the reflection of the high qualification rate, government incentive policy and social support. The
cumulative effect of all these socio-economic factors result in the advancement of the women
participation rate in the workforce.
In case of Berlin, majority of the women employees are more privileged with respect to India.
Women are professionally qualified and they do not need to bear the family expenses as the Indian
women do. Therefore, the women in Berlin can save more, which in turn increases the investment
level of the women. Nevertheless, women investors in Berlin can take investment risk owing to
having the commendable financial strength. On the contrary, women investors in Pune do not have the
strong financial capability. Moreover, India suffers more from financial defaulter cases due to lack of
the government intervention (Kansal and Zaidi 2015). This discourages the investors to forward the
investment process because of the dearth of the government support and reliable information
regarding the financial investors. This impedes the investment volume from the women investors.
Referring to the financial rules and regulations, Germany follows rigid financial system. As a
consequence of that, financial institutes try to follow the standard measure of the national finance
market (Hauff 2014). This lowers then non-compliance investment activities and boosts the
investment. Overall, this leads the women investors to the higher investment level.
Referring to the above discussion, the paper continues to investigate the factors responsible
for the different investment patterns of Pune and Berlin. It is confirmed that Indian women own
conservative thoughts which do not allow them to explore the new investment avenues, like, mutual
fund, share and bonds (Bai, Philippon and Savov 2016.). The interest on the savings deposit is the
principle source of their financial investment. On the contrary, women investors hold dynamic
concept on the investment. Apart from the conventional investment in banking, the Germany women
investors are reported to have towards the modern investment tools. However, every investment is
endowed with considerable size of risk. It is an important task for the investors to control the risk
factors while dealing with the investment level. The return on investment needs to be assured in such
a way that loss will not exceed the profit. Therefore, the women investors are required to do
significant research work before doing any investment in the financial market (Segal, Shaliastovich
and Yaron 2015). In this context, the current research paper strives to enlighten the readers with the
possible consequences of the investment initiatives taken by the women investors in Pune and
Germany.

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1.2 Research Topic
Considering the important role of the women investors in the socio-economic development
and their different approaches to the investment process, the research topic for the current study is
decided as ‘A Comparative study on Investment Behaviour of Women Investors in Berlin, Germany
and Pune, India’.
1.3 Research Aim
Investment is the reflection of the critical analysis of individual’s saving activity. Every
investment decision is subject to financial security, income stability, appreciation and profit
(Miyajima and Shim 2014). The scope of the current research is to find out difference in the saving
patterns, financial planning, liquidity and long term growth return for the women investors across the
considerate two cities. The insight view of the current research attains to highlight the way which will
improve financial planning through a systematic way including the SWOT analysis (Okech and
Mukoba 2016). Further, the paper is aimed at finding out the appropriate investment portfolio options
among bonds, insurance, stocks, debentures, tax saving schemes, pension funds, shares, real estate
and others available options for the women investors. Nonetheless, the researcher attains to
investigate different investment aspects of men and women (Haselhuhn, et al. 2017). In general,
women like to follow sustainable investment goal than men implying that present and future
consumption will not be hampered due to the investment planning.
1.4 Research Questions
 How a woman as an individual investor does influence the economic development?
 What are the types of investment options available for the women in respect of their different
investor profiles?
 What are the important future aspects of the financial goals?
 Why financial planning is important for the investment?
 Why the investment perspective of women is different from men?
1.5 Research Objectives
Based on the interest of the research topic, the following research objectives have been
highlighted.
 To find out the investment pattern of the women investors in respect of the two cities.
 To examine the influencing factors in case of taking the financial investment decision
 To observe the financial planning in terms of negotiating the risk with the return on the
investment.
 To find out the appropriate set of investment approaches, like, assets, insurance, capital
market, jewelry for the women investors.

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 To overhaul the pros and cons related to the financial investment decision of the women
investors.
 To incorporate the SWOT analysis as to measure the probable threats and weakness a woman
can face during the financial investment process.
 To find out the effective measurements which helps in mitigating the investment risks of the
investors
 To construct a comparative analysis with respect to women investors in Pune city of India and
Berlin city of Germany.
1.6 Hypothesis
Two hypotheses have taken as to accomplish the research aim following the research
objectives. Hypotheses are written as follows.
Hypothesis 1
Null hypothesis (H01): There exist significant differences in the investment behaviour of the
women investors who hail from Pune in India and Berlin in Germany.
Alternative hypothesis (H11): There is no significant difference in the investment behaviour
of the women investors who hail from Pune in India and Berlin in Germany.

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Chapter 2: Literature Review
This chapter presents an extensive and comprehensive discussion on literatures on the
investment behaviour among the women investors through a comparative study of women from Pune,
India and Berlin, Germany. The purpose of this chapter is to illustrate the context of the research
study in a detailed manner to the make the readers acquainted with the concerned study (Klapper,
Lusardi and Van Oudheusden 2015). Moreover, this chapter also highlights the aspects of the
concerned study that had been previously explored by the scholars, which is beneficial to identify the
literature gap for this research study.
2.1 Comparative analysis of investment behavior of the women investors in Pune, India and
Berlin, Germany
The main goal behind the investment is to generate appreciation or income for the future
through the purchase of goods. Thus, the association of the investment with the future income or
growth makes it vital. However, there are various risk associated with the investment in the case it
does not falls short or pan out. The behaviour of the investors varies depending on the risk and
challenges associated with the investment. There exists difference in behaviour among the different
gender in terms of investment. This paper emphasizes on the investment behaviour of the women
from various regions. In order to manage loss on investment and portfolios risk, one of the efficient
way is to diversification of investment styles and types. The status of the women plays a crucial role
in the investment behaviour. Whereas, the status of the women varies depending on the position of the
country. According to (Richter et al. 2017), the women are risk averse when it comes to investment in
comparison with men. Here, a major role is played by the characteristic of women investors that act as
strength or weakness in case of investment.
Thus, these strengths and weakness of the women investors determines the threats and
opportunities faced by the women while investing. As stated by (Demirguc-Kunt et al. 2015), the key
characteristics that influence the investment behaviour of the women across the world have some
common ground. One of the major constraints that prevent a women from investing is lack of
thorough knowledge related to all the investment avenues. Therefore, a very less percentage of the
income is invested by many women due to risks associated with it. Another factor that lowers the
investment sentiment of the women is the reliance on the others for the investment decision. The
percentage of women who have not been able to take independent investment decision is very big. A
majority of women depends on the opportunities to come for the making investment decision. As a
result, these women have not planned for their finances and other avenues of the investment. As per
(D'Acunto 2015), one common opinion that persists among the women is one of important factor that
should be considered while taking investment decision is liquidity. Thus, the women strongly believe
in keeping liquid money available instead of investing for the future. One of the vital trend that can

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encourage women participation in investment include basic understanding about the investment
among most of the women.
In addition, most of the women are considered as the conservative investors as they prefer to
invest in safer investment options. While investing in the pension the women are more conservative
than the men (Agarwal et al. 2015). A majority of the women distribute their finances for household
expenses, life protection, basic savings and education of the children, tax planning and marriage of the
children. Furthermore, the women are reluctant to risk with decreasing in portfolio value. Thus, they
cannot wait for the improvements and does not like to take risks. The nature of the women as a low
risk taker compelled them to invest in low risk investments. Additionally, most of the women invested
in low returns and low risk options including post office deposits, bank deposits, provident fund and
insurance. According to (Von Wallis and Klein 2015), women seek guidance from their experienced
family member prior taking investment decisions. In some cases, the financial goals of the women are
different from the men due to their investment behaviour. A majority of the women wanted to invest
in options where the assets will grew along with the generation of income. Thus, a long term growing
assets with income will offer financial security for the women as believed by many women.
Another essential feature that helps to define the investment behaviour of the women include
the preference of the women to invest in avenues which are short and medium term current income
generation and invests in funds which produces income in long term. On the one hand, the
characteristics of the women such as balance, quality conscious, holistic thinker and intuitive acts in
favour of their investment decision. In general, they prefer to undertake an in-depth analysis prior to
investment by adopting a futuristic approach, which make them good savers and at the same time they
are self-controlled (Mohammadi and Shafi 2018). These features are considered as the strengths of the
women investors around the world. On the other hand, the characteristics of the women such as risk
aversion, lower levels of financial knowledge, conservative attitude, seeking guidance from others,
religiousness, lack of confidence and poor health are considered as the weakness of the women in
regards to the investment decision. However, it changes with respect to the countries and different
cities of the countries. Therefore, there prevails difference in investment behaviour of the women
investors in Pune, India and Berlin, Germany.
The opportunities that encourages the women to invest willingly include the initiatives taken
by the country for the women empowerment and strengthening the financial knowledge of the
women. Therefore, these new opportunities contributed largely in the growth and development of the
women in many countries. As stated by (Kanze et al. 2018), the factors that works as threats for the
women investors include exclusion from the informal networks, interrupted and short employment
history and low levels of wage. Hence, it degrades the financial well-being of the women in many
countries of the world. Thus, this paper taken into consideration investment and saving pattern of the

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income as well as salaried class women in cites of Pune and Berlin of the countries India and
Germany respectively (Daniel and Hirshleifer 2015). Now-a-days women are actively participating in
the every field with their male counterparts. Thus, women are no more confined to only household
works and contributes largely in the nation-building. Various earning opportunities helps the women
in wealth creation. Other factors that plays important role in this aspect are education opportunities
and women centered programs and policies of the government. The women got their financial
independence from these opportunities and increased their participation in social and political sphere
of the country. There are several steps of the financial planning process, which helps to complete the
procedure. In addition, there exists a wide range of risk associated with the investment that inhibits
the women investors from investing such as country risk, systematic risk, interest rate risk, credit or
default risk, systematic risk, market risk, political risk and foreign exchange risk (Barman 2015).
Therefore, certain factors that also creates problems for the women investors to invest in bonds,
stocks, insurance, real estate, debentures, tax saving funds, shares and pension funds based on the
risks associated with the country. The political, legal and economic structure of India and Germany
differs on wide areas, which influence the investment behavior of the women investors of Pune, India
and Berlin, Germany significantly.
2.2 Investment Behavior of the women investors in Pune, India
According to (Javakhadze, Ferris and French 2016), the gender inequality among the
countries affects the investment behavior of the women. The investment behavior of the women
changes with respect to the equality ratio in the country. In counties like India, the major barriers that
influence the economic independence of the women include inequality in wages and political
representation. However, with the betterment in equality ratio, the scenario of the investment can be
different. It will encourage more women to take risk in investments in order to get high returns. In
contrast, Pune is one of the advance city of the India, where the number of working women are
relatively high. The presence of the various educational institutions promotes women participation in
education and employment (Hastings and Mitchell 2020). The key sectors of Pune, India where
majority of the women works including information technology and education. As the city of India is
known for its achievements in the field of education, it helped in women empowerment and make
women more self-reliant in case of financial independence. Therefore, it can be said that despite
various hinders that lowers the confidence of the women to invest, the development and liberalization
of the city boost the confidence of the women investors in Pune compared to other parts of the
country.
Furthermore, the modernization and international activities of the city also influences the
behavior of the women investors. On the contrary, as stated by (Horneff et al. 2015), the women from
the city Pune should emphasize more on identification of present scenario related to financial
situation. It will assist them to negative the adverse impact of the investment. Another step that will