The stock market is the most popular option for long-term investment among U.S. adults, according to a new survey by the financial data company Bankrate.
A total of 27 percent of the survey respondents picked the stock market as their go-to choice for investing money that they do not need for the next decade or longer.
This may come as little surprise, given that the S&P 500 stock index returned more than 20 percent in both 2023 and 2024.
As Statista’s Anna Fleck details below, the next most popular investment choices were real estate and cash investments, at 24 percent and 21 percent, respectively.
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Among those who preferred other investments to the stock market, main reasons for deterrence included volatility and feeling intimidated, with women citing intimidation (23 percent) at a higher rate than men did (15 percent). This is just one of the factors that has led to an investment gender gap. Research has found that this in addition to drivers such as women often underrating their financial knowledge, as well as having had less exposure to the topic through early life socialization, as reported by ZEW. However, there are signs this is changing, with a 2024 report by financial services company Fidelity finding that more women are investing than before, particularly among Gen Z.
But even as more young women are investing, JPMorgan research has found that still an even greater number of Gen Z men are diving into investments. Since the pandemic, there has been a surge in retail investing, with participation among 25-year-olds increasing from six percent in 2015 to 37 percent in 2024, according to the bank. Gen Z men have driven this rise, with analysts believing that this group had spent time learning how to invest during the pandemic on social media. JPMorgan adds that financial education will be important for first-time investors, particularly when it comes to learning about taxes, volatility and losses.
These shifts are also backed in research from the World Economic Forum, which similarly found in a 2025 report that younger groups are engaging with the topic of personal investing from an earlier age. For instance, 41 percent of Gen Z respondents started learning about it in early adulthood and university versus just 16 percent of Baby Boomers when they were the same age.
The WEF notes that in addition to younger people and women, individuals from emerging markets are also participating in capital markets at higher rates.
Drivers of the increase include technological innovation (tech-enabled guidance) and domestic growth, citing for instance, how India has had over 120 million individuals engage in capital markets for the first time between 2019 and 2023.
Additionally, Statista’s Felix Richter notes that after years of relatively low stock ownership in the wake of the Great Recession, the share of Americans who are invested in the stock market climbed to the highest level since 2008 last year and has remained level since.
That’s according to a recent Gallup poll, which found that 62 percent of U.S. adults own stock in one way or another.
While equity investing is widely considered a good thing – after all it gives people the opportunity to participate in economic growth – it has the tendency to increase wealth inequality, as lower-income groups are much less likely to invest in the stock market.
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According to Gallup, 87 percent of U.S. adults with a household income of $100,000 or higher own stocks. Among those with a household income of less than $50,000, stock ownership falls to just 28 percent.
And because the wealthy tend to have larger portfolios than lower-income investors, it can be assumed that the real distribution of stock market gains is even more extreme than that.
One recent example of stock ownership contributing to inequality is the Covid-19 pandemic. While low-wage workers were disproportionately affected by job losses, most wealthy Americans not only kept their jobs but also profited from a surge in share prices following the initial and surprisingly brief Covid dip.
So while getting through the pandemic somehow with the help of government benefits was the best that many low-income Americans could hope for, wealthy Americans accumulated more wealth, even in a time of crisis.
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