The Financial Gender Gap

The financial gender gap, i.e., the well-established gender differences in financial decisions, has been the subject of much recent discussion and debate. We know little about what drives this gap though.

Because the financial decisions of individuals play an extensive role in determining welfare in all stages of life, the identification of the contributing factors is of crucial importance. This is the pioneering goal of Gender-in-Finance.

The overall concept and central contributions of Gender-in-Finance are the following: (1) the project innovates by creating a unique panel data set, comprised of a rich set of experimental measures, including beliefs, expectations, preferences, and the decision-making abilities of individuals, merged with a panel of detailed high-frequency transaction-level bank data, capturing both real-world financial decisions and constraints of individuals.

No comparable data set exists and it enables the identification of the factors that contribute the most to the financial gender gap in reality; (2) using this data set, the project offers ground-breaking, evidence-based understanding of the gender differences in financial-choices along several dimensions that contribute to financial well-being; (3) by identifying the factors that contribute to the gender gap in financial choices the project informs the development of models of financial decision making.

Ultimately, this research agenda will shed light on what drives gender differences in financial decision making as well as which policies may be effective in narrowing these gaps.

Specifically, the novel insights I aim to provide is expected to lead to substantial improvements in the methods used to fight the financial gender gap as the better understanding of the forces behind the financial gender gap will inform the current debate on this issue and provide important lessons to policy makers who have gender equality on their agenda.