There has been a 77 per cent increase in the number of female Sampension customers changing their investment risk profiles between 2023 and 2024, figures from Sampension have revealed.

The research also found that between 2019 and 2024, the percentage of female Sampension customers who changed their investment profile rose by 253 percent.

In 2024, women accounted for 41 per cent of all changes to investment profiles among Sampension's customers, while this was 37 per cent in 2023 and 32 per cent in 2019.

In addition to this, the research found that women made up an increasing proportion of customers who modify the risk level of their pension investments.

Meanwhile, 49 per cent of male customers changed their investment profile in the past year, a 138 per cent increase over the past five years.

Commenting on the figures, Sampension senior adviser, Helle Dalsgaard, said: “Historically, it has been the case that men are generally more concerned with financial matters such as pensions than women. This is still true overall, but at the same time, we also see a fairly significant development among women on this front in recent years.

“Because they are increasingly interested in their personal finances, which is also reflected in the fact that far more women are now adjusting the risk with which their pension is invested.”

The research also showed that women almost exclusively increase the investment risk when they change their investment profile; 95 per cent of all shifts among Sampension female customers were to higher-risk investments in 2024. The same applied to 96 per cent of male customers.

Dalsgaard explained that women’s approach to investing has been, and still is, a little more cautious than men's in general but said there seemed to be a movement towards increased risk appetite among women, with many choosing to increase the investment risk in their pension savings.

“In this way, they prioritise the prospect of getting a higher expected return over time, even though there is of course no guarantee of this, and even though higher risk will result in greater fluctuations in returns along the way,” she continued.

She also pointed out that there is no right or wrong when choosing investment risk, as it depends on an individual’s risk appetite, which can vary.

Dalsgaard said in recent years, Sampension saw a “significant” increase in the number of women who pay extra into their pension on their own, calling this “gratifying”.

She added that the increased interest in pensions could help strengthen women's savings, increase their financial opportunities as pensioners, and close the gap between women’s and men’s pension assets in the future.

The number of Sampension female customers who have paid extra into their pension savings has increased by 14 per cent in 2024 and by 46 per cent over the past five years.

Meanwhile, for men this increased by 8 per cent in 2024 and by 27 per cent over the past five years.

Sampension also highlighted figures from Statistics Denmark that found that women's pension assets were on average 19 per cent lower than men's in 2023.

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