Financial Thriving: A Positive Pathway for Women’s Financial Well-Being

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A historic transfer of wealth is underway, positioning women in a larger role within the global financial system and expanding their influence. Within the next decade, women are expected to control $34 trillion in investable assets, up from roughly $18 trillion in 2023 (Catania & Zucker, 2025). This shift has profound implications that extend well beyond the balance sheet, creating an opportunity to reconsider how changing our view of financial well-being can empower women and enhance their overall well-being. The wealth management process was not built with women in mind, as it was developed long before women had full legal rights to own and control financial assets. It has long been a technical field rooted in math, models, and markets. However, money issues are not always purely mathematical; they are often fundamental human issues. 

While so many women are achieving financial security today, they remain significantly less engaged with their wealth than men (Catania & Zucker, 2025). Women also remain significantly underrepresented in the financial services industry. At just 23%, the number of female Certified Financial Planner (CFP®) professionals has been stagnant for over a decade (CFP Board, 2025). Even more stark, research has revealed that in the U.S., women currently account for a smaller percentage of fund managers than they did two decades ago, highlighting not only a lack of meaningful improvement but a move backward (Stankiewicz, 2025). 

The missing link may be the need to view money through a well-being lens, which we suspect will be more attractive to women. It is time to move beyond the numbers toward financial thriving, a more holistic experience of our relationship with money.

A New Paradigm of Financial Well-Being

Drawing on principles from positive psychology, positive organizational scholarship (POS), positive organizational behavior (POB), narrative psychology, social psychology, and related fields, we define financial thriving as a holistic and dynamic state:

Financial Thriving: A psychological state characterized by both vitality and learning in one’s financial life. It reflects an energized and evolving relationship with money, where individuals feel alive, confident, and engaged (vitality) while continually building understanding, skills, and capacity (learning) to make values-aligned, self-determined financial decisions. Financial thriving is not merely about achieving external financial milestones; it is about the internal experience of cultivating one’s financial life with agency, meaning, and emotional engagement. When individuals financially thrive, they:

  • feel energized and motivated to engage with money;

  • experience continual growth in competence and understanding;

  • navigate decisions with clarity, resilience, and purpose; and

  • integrate financial behavior with personal values and life goals (Bailey & Scupham, 2025).

This matters for everyone, but it matters especially for women. 

The Need for a Different Approach

Empirical research strongly supports that women approach financial decisions differently than traditional models suggest. In fact, 77% of women view money in terms of what it can do for their families, and 84% say that understanding their finances is key to greater career flexibility (Age Wave and Merrill Lynch, 2018). Additionally, 52% of women investors are interested in or engaged in values-aligned impact investing, seeking both financial returns and social impact. When engaging with wealth management, women value three dynamics as critically important in the relationship: to be listened to and understood; a collaborative partner who provides ongoing education; and a financial plan aligned to service their lifestyle needs, personal values, and goals (Larrabee, 2019).

Research using a sample of 712 twins found that men, but not women, had higher subjective financial well-being when they had higher incomes. Environmental factors rather than genetic influences entirely drove this relationship. In fact, women showed no overlapping environmental factors that influenced both income and well-being (Zyphur et al., 2015). This suggests that traditional financial planning approaches, focused on wealth accumulation, may inadvertently optimize well-being in men but overlook what drives financial well-being in women. In another study, men tended to associate money with power and prestige. In contrast, women more frequently associated money with security and as a means of demonstrating their love (Sesini et al., 2023). These differences do not suggest that one approach to financial well-being is better than the other—whether centered on wealth maximization, purpose-driven impact, expressions of care, or a combination of many. Instead, what has emerged is the need for an approach that accommodates all paths to financial thriving, rather than pushing one perspective while overlooking the other.  

The Weight of Denied Agency

There is a reason the wealth management industry hasn’t centered women’s experiences: It couldn’t. Women have had remarkably little time to participate in the financial system at all. From ancient Rome to 1974, legal systems across the Western world routinely denied women the right to own or manage property. That legacy isn’t ancient history. In nearly two millennia, only women born in the last 50 years have entered the world with full legal access to money, and with it, the opportunity to decide what financial thriving means to them. 

Starting in 1839 with Mississippi, states gradually passed Married Women’s Property Acts, which allowed women to keep ownership of property they brought into marriage or earned independently (Geddes & Lueck, 2002). However, although it began in 1839, it took more than a century for women to gain full access to their financial resources. As recently as 1973, just 52 years ago, Arizona passed the Married Women’s Earnings Act, granting married women the right to retain their own income (Alshaikhmubarak et al., 2019). The following year, the Equal Credit Opportunity Act (ECOA) became the first major federal legislation to explicitly prohibit sex-based discrimination in personal finance and lending, finally securing fundamental financial rights for women, such as the legal right to access credit in their own names (Equal Credit Opportunity Act, 1974).

The impact of denied property rights extends beyond mere financial implications. It was a denial of agency itself. When an individual cannot own property, they cannot make autonomous decisions about their livelihood, future, or security (Geddes & Lueck, 2002). Without legal structures supporting it, women were systematically excluded from developing what Seligman (2021) describes as the essential components of agency: efficacy (the belief that one can achieve a goal), optimism (the expectation that the goal is attainable), and imagination (the ability to conceive of goals that extend beyond the present moment).

Although women today have legal and material access to financial resources, the psychological components necessary to support and contribute to financial thriving remain underdeveloped or absent altogether.

Positive Psychology as a Pathway to Possibility

The wealth management industry’s current use of psychology focuses primarily on identifying and correcting poor money behaviors. Behavioral finance examines the biases that drive financial decisions (Agudelo Aguirre & Agudelo Aguirre, 2024). Financial therapy addresses cognitive, emotional, and behavioral patterns around money (Grable et al., 2010). Both frameworks, while valuable, emphasize dysfunction, fixing what is wrong rather than cultivating what is possible. 

This mirrors psychology’s own evolution from a field focused almost exclusively on treating mental illness until positive psychology emerged to focus on what helps people to flourish. We need the same shift in financial well-being. In addition to correcting what is wrong, we need to ask how we can utilize our financial resources to truly thrive.

Current frameworks define financial well-being as the absence of financial hardship, a neutral baseline of security. But financial thriving is not neutral. It is dynamic, experiential, and deeply connected to meaning. It encompasses vitality (feeling energized and engaged) and learning (building competence and understanding). It acknowledges that financial well-being varies from person to person and that these differences are not shortcomings to be addressed but rather paths to be supported. 

In our proprietary study, women consistently reported that financial thriving was about more than numbers. One key component that emerged was that women want a meaningful narrative that connects money and purpose. This involves reinterpreting inherited financial messages, rewriting limiting beliefs, and anchoring the definition of wealth in deeply held values. When women shift from viewing success as “luck” to recognizing their own capability. When they reframe wealth from external status and instead link it to their values, participation in their wealth transforms from an obligation to an authentic expression. Our research shows that this shift in narrative is especially powerful when money connects to legacy, impact, and care rather than mere accumulation. Without this, even financial stability can feel empty, leading to aimless spending. By questioning dominant money messages and authoring new stories aligned with their values and life stages, women move from transactional to transformational relationships with money, where financial decisions become natural extensions of who they are and what matters most. 

When women are supported in building a strong and active relationship with their finances, the effects extend far beyond the individual. Financially thriving women will likely invest in their families, communities, and future generations. Supporting women’s financial thriving is a strategic investment in collective well-being. Additionally, money can be a tool for creating the life we want, not just for security. It requires moving beyond a model built for one perspective and embracing the full complexity of how individuals, across all genders, experience and find meaning in their financial lives. Financial thriving offers a pathway forward for redefining wealth from simply a number to an experience filled with energy, purpose, and meaning. 

Note from the authors: At Cairrus, we use our proprietary, research-backed framework, partnering with financial advisors and executives to inspire women to take action in the intentional pursuit of financial clarity, confidence, and lasting engagement with their wealth. To learn more about our research, please visit www.cairrus.com or email A.J. Scupham and Teresa J.W. Bailey at connect@cairrus.com.

 

References

Age Wave & Merrill Lynch. (2018). Women & financial wellness: Beyond the bottom line. Bank of America Corporation. https://agewave.com/what-we-do/landmark-research-and-consulting/research-studies/women-and-financial-wellness/.

Agudelo Aguirre, R. A., & Agudelo Aguirre, A. A. (2024). Behavioral finance: Evolution from the classical theory and remarks. Journal of Economic Surveys, 38(2), 452–475. https://doi.org/10.1111/joes.12593

Alshaikhmubarak, H., Geddes, R. R., & Grossbard, S. A. (2019). Single motherhood and the abolition of coverture in the United States. Journal of Empirical Legal Studies, 16(1), 94–118. https://doi.org/10.1111/jels.12210

Bailey, T. J. W., & Scupham, A. J. (2025). The A.S.C.E.N.D. model of engagement: Empowering women to thrive financially. [Unpublished master’s thesis]. University of Pennsylvania.

Catania, C., & Zucker, J. (2025). The new face of wealth: The rise of the female investor. https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/financial-services/our-insights/the-new-face-of-wealth-the-rise-of-the-female-investor

CFP Board. (2025, June 1). CFP® professional demographics. https://www.cfp.net/knowledge/reports-and-statistics/professional-demographics

Equal Credit Opportunity Act, §§ 1691–1691f United States Code (1974). https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/USCODE-2011-title15/html/USCODE-2011-title15-chap41-subchapIV.htm

Geddes, R., & Lueck, D. (2002). The gains from self-ownership and the expansion of women’s rights. The American Economic Review, 92(4), 1079–1092.

Grable, J., McGill, S., & Britt, S. (2010). The financial therapy association: A brief history. Journal of Financial Therapy, 1(1). https://doi.org/10.4148/jft.v1i1.235

Larrabee, L.M. (2019). Using financial psychology to better serve female clients. Journal of Financial Planning, 32(9), https://www.financialplanningassociation.org/article/journal/SEP19-using-financial-psychology-better-serve-female-clients.

Seligman, M. (2021). Agency in Greco-Roman philosophy. The Journal of Positive Psychology, 16(1), 1–10. https://doi.org/10.1080/17439760.2020.1832250

Sesini, G., Manzi, C., & Lozza, E. (2023). Is psychology of money a gendered affair? A scoping review and research agenda. International Journal of Consumer Studies, 47(6), 2701-2723. https://doi.org/10.1111/ijcs.12975

Stankiewicz, A. (2025, March 7). Women account for a smaller percentage of managers today, compared with 2002. https://www.morningstar.com/sustainable-investing/women-account-smaller-percentage-managers-today-compared-with-2002

Zyphur, M. J., Li, W. D., Zhang, Z., Arvey, R. D., & Barsky, A. P. (2015). Income, personality, and subjective financial well-being: The role of gender in their genetic and environmental relationships. Frontiers in Psychology, 6. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.01493

 

About the authors | A.J. Scupham, CFA®, MAPP, (C’25) is a forward-thinking executive in the financial services sector, recognized for leading organizational change and promoting values-driven leadership. As the Founder of IKS Ventures, she collaborates with firms to develop innovative strategies that integrate growth, culture, and purpose. A.J is also a co-founder of Cairrus, a firm dedicated to providing financial advisors with a framework to inspire women to take action in an intentional pursuit of financial flourishing. The University of Pennsylvania recently awarded A.J and her Cairrus colleague and MAPP classmate, Teresa J.W. Bailey, with the label “Distinguished Capstone” which recognizes the work as a novel contribution to the field of positive psychology. 

With over 25 years of leadership experience, A.J has held transformative roles at global investment firms, including President of Ivy Investments. Her influence extends from board governance to frontline operations, where she consistently challenges industry norms and achieves measurable results. As a certified executive coach in the Frame of Mind methodology, she helps leaders align their mindset, performance, and purpose to transform both organizations and individuals. Her career and contributions reflect a commitment to innovation and redefining what it means to thrive in the finance industry.

Teresa J.W. Bailey, CFP®, MAPP, (C’25) is a pioneering leader in the financial industry, dedicated to empowering women and reshaping financial relationships through innovative strategies and programs. Teresa is co-founder of Wealth of a Woman, a grassroots storytelling campaign with free online content designed to help women improve their relationship with money. Teresa is also the co-founder of Cairrus, a firm dedicated to providing financial advisors with a framework to inspire women to take action in an intentional pursuit of financial flourishing. The University of Pennsylvania recently awarded Teresa and her Cairrus colleague and MAPP classmate, Amy Scupham, with the label “Distinguished Capstone,” which recognizes the work as a novel contribution to the field of positive psychology. Her accolades as a financial advisor, including Wealth Management Industry’s Rising Star, InvestmentNews’ 40 Under 40, and RIA Intel’s Advisor of the Year, reflect her influence and commitment to excellence. Teresa’s efforts challenge traditional industry norms and inspire a new generation of female financial leaders, setting benchmarks for advancement and equity in the field.