Breadwinning women may be poised to take greater control of America’s financial future, but they’re hampered by low levels of confidence and financial literacy.

More than half of married female breadwinners in a New York Life Investments survey, 59%, believed that they lacked sufficient financial and investment literacy, and 13% believed that they are not very or not at all knowledgeable about finance and investing.

“Married breadwinners are accomplished and hard-working women, and a growing segment of the population—yet they do not receive commensurate attention and focus on their idiosyncratic needs, preferences and goals,” said Jennifer Tarsney, director of practice management at New York Life Investments, in a released comment.

Fewer than one in three married, breadwinning women, 31%, feel that they’re financially well-prepared for their future.

But married female breadwinners also report lacking the time to improve their financial knowledge and skills. While 56% of those in the survey said they wish they better understood finance and investing, 31% said they do not have enough time to devote to learning more.

New York Life Investments estimates that breadwinning female investors make up nearly 25% of affluent American households today, making them a large and growing client base for financial advisors.

But there are signs that advisors aren’t serving these women as well as they should. Only half of the survey respondents who worked with an advisor, 52%, said that they have established financial goals for the future. That’s still better than the 28% of breadwinning women not working with an advisor who said they’ve established goals.

Advisors aren’t making many married breadwinners feel better about their financial future. Only 36% of the respondents with an advisor feel they’re financially well-prepared for the future, while 16% of those without an advisor felt that way.

The respondents were unclear about what they most wanted from their advisors: 54% wanted education on how to better save for retirement, 44% wanted to better understand investments like stocks and bonds, and 22% said they were seeking education for improved basic financial literacy from their advisors.

Many married female breadwinners also report being financially out of sync with their spouses, with only 44% of the survey respondents saying they are aligned with their spouses on financial goals. New York Life Investments confirmed the gap by surveying the spouses of breadwinning women.

What they found is concerning—that there are different beliefs within the house about who is in charge. While 52% of married female breadwinners believed they were in charge of their household’s investing, only 8% of the spouses surveyed felt the same way. While 54% of the breadwinning women felt like they were the primary point of contact with advisors, only 14% of their spouses had the same view. In fact, while only 14% of the married female breadwinners saw their spouses as the primary point of contact for advisors, 33% of the spouses believed that to be the case.

For its study of women, New York Life Investments surveyed 500 breadwinners over the age of 25 along with 165 of their spouses.

Nearly a quarter of advisors in a separate survey by New York Life Investments, 23%, identified married breadwinners as the biggest subset of female investors in their books of business. More than a third of the survey, 36%, said that married breadwinners were the most challenging subset of female investors to work with, followed by suddenly single women.

Advisors correctly reported that the chief concern among these breadwinning women is retirement—47% of advisors reported this as the biggest area of focus when working with female married breadwinners. The subject of retirement was followed by the improvement of financial literacy, named by 24% of advisors, and investing for a comfortable lifestyle, named by 23% of advisors.

Similarly, just under a quarter of advisors, 23%, said that married breadwinners were proactive about seeking out additional financial education. Yet two-fifths of the survey, 42%, said they only offer educational opportunities annually. Just 18% of the survey respondents offered financial literacy assistance to clients monthly and only 2% did weekly.

Households with female breadwinners tend to have significant differences in goals and engagement between spouses—84% of advisors reported stark differences in engagement in households with married spouses, and 76% reported a difference in investing needs and goals.

Advisors were divided on whether breadwinning women should be viewed as primary decision-makers in their households, with approximately half believing that female married breadwinners should be treated as a primary decision-maker (51%) and half viewing female married breadwinners as equal partners with their spouse.

The supplemental New York Life Investments survey of advisors was fielded among 213 financial advisors online during July 2020.