Motivation for Sustainable Investments; The Role of Gender in Private Investors’ Decision-Making

Why do people invest sustainably, and does gender shape that choice? Based on ten qualitative interviews with Swiss private bank clients, this thesis finds that men and women arrive at similar investment choices through distinctly different motivational pathways.

Context and problem statement

Sustainable investments have gained significant momentum in Switzerland, driven by growing environmental awareness and regulatory pressure. Prior research consistently shows that women invest more in sustainable funds than men. Yet paradoxically, some studies find that men report stronger environmental and ethical concerns in surveys. This contradiction suggests that motivational mechanisms differ by gender but remain poorly understood, particularly in the Swiss context.

Research objectives and research questions

This thesis identifies and interprets the motivational patterns of Swiss private investors who already invest sustainably, examining how they combine financial and non-financial considerations and whether these patterns differ by gender. Two research questions guided the study: what types of motivation characterise these investors, and how do they differ by gender? And what attitudes, values, and perceptions influence their decisions?

Methodology

Ten semi-structured interviews were conducted with clients of a Swiss private bank, comprising five female and five male participants. Interviews were analysed using qualitative content analysis following the framework of Professor Mayring. Four motivational categories served as the coding framework: financial motives, value-based motives (environmental, social, and governance), emotional motives, and social motives. Additional themes were allowed to emerge inductively from the data.

Findings

Financial returns matter to all participants, but profit maximisation is not the primary goal. Most accepted slightly lower returns in exchange for sustainability alignment, with female participants showing a greater willingness to do so. Environmental values were the most consistently cited dimension, though male participants named them as their primary criterion more often, while female participants combined environmental and social values as a package. Emotional motives were particularly prominent among female participants, all five of whom reported a "warm glow" when acting in line with their values.

Three additional themes emerged: most participants relied on their financial advisor as their main source for sustainable investment information; a sense of intergenerational responsibility was shared across genders; and participants themselves perceived women as more emotionally driven and men as more analytically oriented, which aligned with the empirical findings.

Overall, male investors follow a more performance- and advisor-oriented path, while female investors follow a more value- and emotion-driven path. Both converge around a shared concern for future generations, suggesting that advisory conversations should be tailored to each client's motivational profile.