BIG PART PLAYED BY WOMEN IN FIELD OF FINANCE

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXVII, Issue 23271, 5 June 1950, Page 2

BIG PART PLAYED BY WOMEN IN FIELD OF FINANCE

Women are taking an increasingly important part in the field of finance in the United States. In growing recognition of the fact that women control a major share of the nation's purse strings, they are being appointed to executive positions in insurance, investment, and banking concerns. Today women in the United States own 70 per cent of the nation's privately held wealth, reports Mrs. Helen R. Feil, a woman bank officer and former editor of The Woman Banker magazine. Mrs. Feil further points out that “American women own 75 per cent of all savings-bank deposits in the United States. They are beneficiaries of 80 per cent of the life-insurance policies, make 42 per cent of income-tax returns, and inherit about 68 per cent of all estates.” More than 30,000 American women have attended a special series of investment courses which have been held recently in some 65 cities of the United States for “ladies only.” Lectures given on life insurance are well attended by women at their clubs and in their local banks.

Women in the United States own 40,000,000,000 dollars’ worth of life insurance, according to Mrs. Marion S. Eberly, director of the women’s division of the Institute of Life Insurance in the United States. With 6,000.000 women stockholders in the United States, the newly-organised Federation of Women Shareholders in American Business is recruiting new members rapidly. Its programme is to place women in policy-making positions and to promote economic education for a-11 women. The 6000 women bank executives in the United States have their own organisation called the Association of Bank Women. Its purposes are to bring together women executives engaged in the banking profession for the mutual exchange of ideas and experiences, and to forward the interest of the more than 100,000 women who work in the banks of the United States.