New Report: Gender Disparities in Financial Well-Being

Posted by Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia on October 27, 2020

New report examines gender differences in financial outcomes.

Gender Disparities in Financial Well-Being from the Survey of Household Economics and Decisionmaking provides in-depth analysis of gender differences in banking, credit access, and retirement outcomes. This new report also explores whether financial literacy helps explain these gender differences.

Overall, the research finds significant gender differences in the majority of financial outcomes analyzed from the descriptive analysis. Men are more likely to experience better banking and retirement accounts outcomes than women. Women are more likely to own at least one credit card than men, but they are also more likely to report a recent credit denial and have lower credit confidence than men. Accounting for financial literacy, however, mitigates most of these gender differences.

The results from Gender Disparities in Financial Well-Being from the Survey of Household Economics and Decisionmaking illustrate that familiarity and frequent use of one type of financial product does not automatically guarantee the same for other financial products and outcomes.

Read the full report.