new report on gender differences in financial outcomes

using @federalreserve Survey of Household Economics & Decisionmaking (SHED) data

check out the full report: https://www.philadelphiafed.org/-/media/community-development/publications/special-reports/survey-of-household-economics-and-decisionmaking.pdf

We find that men are more likely to be fully banked than women, in part because women reported using alternative financial services more

women were less confident that that they would be approved for an additional credit card, and more likely to report a recent credit denial

Retirement planning questions produced the largest gender disparities. Women are less likely to than men to 1.) be comfortable making retirement account investment decisions 2.) believe that their retirement savings plan is on track

Then we account for financial literacy level- and most of the gender gaps disappeared! But women are more likely to have at least 1 credit card and less comfortable w.r.t. retirement decisions than men with similar financial literacy levels

The Twitter-less Jennifer Fernandez and I 3-way crosstabs, so we look at gender gaps by race, financial literacy level, household income, household composition, & educational attainment. Surprise, surprise this is when things start getting more interesting

For all banking and credit outcomes with a significant gender difference overall, there is no gender gap among white, non-Hispanic adults. The overall gender differences are driven by the gender gaps among nonwhite adults

Another weird observation: for both retirement outcomes analyzed, the gender gaps are largest among adults with a bachelor’s degree or higher

There’s a lot more in the report, but if you just read this thread: there are wild gender differences by financial literacy level, and the SHED is a wicked awesome resource for banking, credit, and retirement topics

fin.