It’s been a difficult year for the alternative investment industry, as hedge funds, private equity firms and venture capital funds have been buffeted by worldwide market volatility.

But a glimmer of hope may lie in a new study that suggests that women executives in the industry are optimistic about the investment opportunities ahead.

While most of the 189 women executives in the survey said the coming 18 months would be challenging, nearly 65 percent said they expected to find attractive investment opportunities, according to the study by the professional services firm Rothstein Kass and the international women’s group 85 Broads. More than half of the women said they planned to start new funds during that period.

“They’re definitely still underrepresented in the industry, but a number of the high-level women we were surveying, who are really the decision makers, were confident in their own abilities to raise funds,” Kelly Easterling, a principal in the financial services practice at Rothstein Kass, said in an interview.

Men far outnumber women on Wall Street. Another recent study, by the City University of New York‘s Center for Urban Research, showed that women were just over 27 percent of Wall Street workers from 2005 to 2009, according to United States Census data.

Female executives in the alternative investment industry acknowledged this disparity. While most women expected that the creation of new funds would increase over the next 18 months, only 28 percent of the respondents to the Rothstein Kass survey predicted that women would be involved.

Women executives say they can face hurdles when it comes to raising capital. A third of the women in the study said women were hindered by the stereotype that they were more committed to their family or personal life than their career.

“Many funds launch with capital from friends and family, but I haven’t seen as many women fund managers go to their own networks or friends and family for initial funding,” Dorothy C. Weaver, chief executive of the wealth management firm Collins Capital, said in the study. “I’m not sure if they are not asking or if they are asking but not getting the funds.”

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