Individual investors and gender similarities in an emerging stock market

We study the investment behavior of men and women in an emerging stock market. Unlike developed markets, men and women in the People's Republic of China are equally represented. Men have larger average portfolios than women (RMB 155,121 vs. RMB 118,461) and place slightly larger trades (RMB 37,479 vs. RMB 33,861). More importantly, males and females exhibit similar behavior along three key dimensions: (1) The degree of home bias is similar across genders – both men and women over-weight local stocks by 9% relative to the market portfolio. (2) The portfolio performances of males and females are not statistically different. (3) Men appear to trade more intensively than women before controlling for factors such as number of stocks held and number of trading rights. After controlling for these factors, there is no significant difference in trading intensity. We use survival analysis to control for both observable and unobservable characteristics when studying trading intensity. These controls prove crucial when comparing behavior across groups of investors.