Harnessing the Power of the Purse: Female Investors and Global Opportunities for Growth, Sylvia Ann Hewlett and Andrea Turner Moffitt with Melinda Marshall, Center for Talent and Innovation. 2014.

“Women create, control, and influence an enormous amount of wealth around the globe. The amount is staggering: upwards of $20 trillion, or 27 percent of the world’s total wealth. In the US alone, women exercise decision-making control over $11.2 trillion. That’s a whopping 39 percent of the nation’s estimated $28.6 trillion of investable assets. And nearly half of that purse—$5.1 trillion—is managed solely by women. In the countries we sampled—the United States, the United Kingdom,
India, China, Singapore, and Hong Kong—66 percent of women identify themselves as primary decision makers over household investable assets. Female wealth creators are the most likely to describe themselves as primary decisions makers (as fully 75 percent do), but surprisingly, so too do 66 percent of inheritors and 43 percent of women whose spouse created their household wealth. Women are, in short, economic powerhouses. They are not just influencing wealth, but determining how their assets are allocated.”