“Financial autonomy is something a lot of Canadians are striving for every day — alongside that, they can achieve financial empowerment,” said Avnee Patel (pictured right), senior director of business development and group retirement savings at Desjardins, during a fireside chat at Benefits Canada’s inaugural Women’s Health & Wealth Summit.
“Growing up, financial empowerment felt like a luxury. Planning for the future, being able to learn and feeling like the financial systems around you were meant for you feels like a luxury when you’re trying to make ends meet day-to-day.”
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Three in five women are experiencing financial stressors, with the two main causes the wage gap and the confidence gap, added Telma Charrua (pictured left), director of business development and group benefits at Desjardins, also speaking during the session. “As women we tend to be risk adverse. We aren’t going to put an answer unless we’re absolutely sure of what it is.
“We have a lot of tools and resources available, but if women aren’t feeling confident about their finances and how to engage them, they aren’t going to utilize them,” she added.
Sixty-nine per cent of women feel financially vulnerable, 43 per cent of women lack confidence in managing their finances and women are less likely to understand their group savings plan, according to Charrua, noting this results in a lower use of plans, engagement and tool usage.
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However, women also place more value in their group retirement programs or group savings plans, she added, and want to grow their financial literacy more than men do, according to surveys.
Charrua and Patel shared a simple solution to encourage women to engage in their group savings plan — set a personal financial goal. “We need to rewrite the narrative in terms of how we engage women and how we engage people in general on setting those financial goals,” said Charrua.
Plan sponsors can help shift the narrative to encourage confidence through personalization by accounting for unconventional families and the power of storytelling. “Setting personal [financial] goals is like going to the grocery store,” said Charrua, noting that having a recipe in mind while shopping makes it easier to decide what to look for, select and feel confident in what is put in the basket.
Read more coverage of the 2026 Women’s Health & Wealth Summit.