BlackRock study exposes advice gap as women's wealth surges

Affluent American women are building wealth at a pace the financial advice industry has yet to fully grasp and a new study from BlackRock suggests advisors who fail to catch up risk losing clients they don't even know they're losing.

The inaugural Future of Wealth: Women, Money & The Growing Opportunity for Advisors report, challenges several long-held assumptions about women as financial clients and make a pointed case for advisors to rethink their engagement strategies.

Women are projected to control $34 trillion in U.S. investable assets by 2030, according to McKinsey & Company's 2024 report "The new face of wealth: The rise of the female investor." An estimated $47 trillion in generational wealth is expected to transfer to women by 2048, according to Cerulli Associates' 2024 "U.S. High-Net-Worth and Ultra-High-Net-Worth Markets" report.

But despite that scale, the BlackRock study found that 35% of women with $2 million or more in investable assets are currently unadvised - a figure that climbs to 45% among women with $10 million or more.

What advisors are getting wrong

The report - fielded by Escalent, an independent research firm, which surveyed 1,067 affluent and high-net-worth women investors and 409 financial advisors across the U.S. between July 29 and August 23, 2026 - documents a series of meaningful gaps between advisor assumptions and client reality.

Chief among them: advisors tend to associate women's financial lives with major life transitions such as widowhood, divorce, or retirement, while women themselves point to career promotions, marriage and becoming a parent as the events that most shaped their financial trajectories.

Career earnings are the dominant source of wealth for women, cited by 79% of female respondents. Advisors, by contrast, estimate the figure at just 49%. At higher wealth levels, equity compensation looms even larger, cited by 41% of women with $5 million or more in assets versus 19% of women below that threshold.

The priority gap is equally striking. When asked about their top five-year financial objectives, women ranked growing their wealth first, cited by 46% of respondents. Advisors placed that goal eighth on their list of what they believe women prioritize - ranking wealth preservation, family support and life transitions ahead of it.

Tax planning is another area where advisors are underestimating client expectations. Women ranked tax-efficient financial decisions as their single top need for professional guidance, cited by 43%, on par with investment strategy and estate planning.

Advisors placed tax management fourth. The BlackRock 2026 Advisor Trends Survey (a separate study fielded by Escalent between August 22 and September 7, 2025, covering 1,023 advisors) found that while 92% of advisors serving high-net-worth clients report being frequently asked for tax guidance, only 17% treat after-tax return as a primary driver of portfolio decisions.

"The research underscores a broader shift reshaping the future of wealth," said Jaime Magyera, Head of BlackRock's U.S. Wealth and Retirement Businesses. "Women are not a niche segment of investors but a leading indicator of where investor expectations are headed. The same priorities women are expressing today — strong investment outcomes, tax-smart strategies and expert advice that connects the different dimensions of their financial lives - reflect what all investors will expect tomorrow."

The retention risk hiding in plain sight

Even among women who already work with an advisor, the study surfaces a significant retention problem. Among advised women with $5 million to $10 million in assets, 37% say they are somewhat or very likely to consider switching advisors within two years - the highest switching likelihood of any wealth tier surveyed.

That group also reports the greatest concentration of unmet needs: 35% cite an unmet need for coordination with other financial professionals, and 26% report an unmet tax-related need.

As female-controlled wealth climbs toward $34 trillion, a small group of financial planners is building practices designed specifically for women, as InvestmentNews has reported. But the BlackRock data suggests the industry as a whole has yet to make that pivot at scale.

Advisors acknowledge the shortfall. Nearly 60% say earlier engagement with women (before a significant wealth transition) represents the largest gap in their relationship-building approach.

Meanwhile, 45% identify prospecting and connecting with women as a leading operational challenge. Eighty-one percent say they currently build new relationships primarily through referrals from existing clients, a method that may limit reach among the growing population of unadvised high-net-worth women.

The window is particularly open among younger clients. Among advised women under 45, 42% are considering switching advisors within two years, compared with just 4% of women 65 and older; a signal that practices that fail to address unmet needs early may not hold the next generation of wealth creators.

Confidence, clarity and connected advice

The study also reframes the question of financial confidence. Advisors tend to associate women's decision-making hesitancy with emotional readiness and a need for reassurance. Women, however, point to practical barriers: insufficient information, uncertainty about available options and concern over tax implications are the factors most likely to stall a financial decision, not emotional overwhelm.

Women advisors carve out niche as female wealth nears $34 trillion has been a growing conversation inside the profession.

The BlackRock report extends that discussion to a systemic level, arguing that the model of advice itself needs to evolve. Women identified coordination across financial professionals - meaning integration between their advisor, accountant, attorney and other specialists - as their largest unmet need. Only 12% of advised women say their advisor currently provides that kind of connected guidance, even as 26% identify it as a gap.

Advisors recognize the issue. Fifty-four percent say coordinating across professionals is their top challenge when serving high-net-worth clients, according to the 2026 BlackRock Advisor Trends Survey, and 45% say this capability will become more important over the next decade.

BlackRock's research frames the opportunity in concrete terms for advisors willing to act. Eighty-six percent of advisors surveyed agree that women represent an important source of future growth for their practice.

But execution lags recognition: only 63% say they are actively investing in strategies to grow with women clients, and 69% say they have a defined plan for engaging women across life stages.

The full Future of Wealth report is available through BlackRock's advisor insights platform.