IMCA Research Seminar - Adam Hayes, University of Jerusalem: "THIS IS NOT FINANCIAL ADVICE": Gendered Accounts of Financial on Social Media and its Implications for the Gender Gap in Financial Literacy

Istituto di marketing e comunicazione aziendale

Data: 29 Marzo 2023 / 12:30 - 14:00

Aula 251

IMCA Research Seminar - Adam Hayes, University of Jerusalem

Bio

Adam Hayes, PhD is an assistant professor of Sociology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in Israel. Adam’s research focuses on topics related to financial markets, economic behavior, and financial technologies – including some of the first sociological research on Bitcoin and blockchains. His work often combines insight sand methods from sociology, economics, and finance to explore the social and institutional aspects of market behavior and financial systems. His research has appeared in top academic journals including Social Forces, Socio-Economic Review, Economy & Society, Sociological Theory, and Social Psychology Quarterly. He is currently working on a book project that is a sociological intervention into behavioral economics, an influential field that has been deeply rooted in cognitive psychology. Prior to earning his PhD at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Adam worked for many years on Wall Street as a derivatives trader and in wealth management. During that time he also earned the Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) designation.

 

"THIS IS NOT FINANCIAL ADVICE”: Gendered Accounts of Financial on Social Media and its Implications for the Gender Gap in Financial Literacy

Abstract

The gender gap in financial literacy is an important social issue that persists regardless of age, education level, income, and marital status, suggesting that women may face unique barriers to acquiring financial knowledge and the skills necessary for building and maintaining wealth. At the same time, more individuals are seeking financial advice online from social media influencers (“finfluencers”) and acting on it. Social media is a much more gender-inclusive space, and both male and female finfluencers have carved out niches with large audiences. This allows unique insight into how financial advice itself may become gendered and how individuals respond to it. We show that men and women indeed employ different rhetorical devices and highlight different types of advice. Rather than being neutral, our findings suggest that conventional financial advice is often masculine-biased in ways that could play into the gender gap, and which have previously gone unnoticed. Moreover, we find male and female consumers of financial advice subconsciously prefer advice that is coded for their own gender. Our findings highlight the need for more nuanced and gender-sensitive approaches to financial advice and policy interventions.

Facoltà