Finance, economy. Women and finance. The anniversary of 8 March, International Women's Day, is an opportunity to take stock and it cannot be said that these are sectors where the gender gap is not only existing but very large. It will take 135 years to close this gap, according to the Gender Gap Report 2021 of the World Economic Forum, with an almost desperate addition: "The strictly economic one will require even more".
If it is a certainty that women enjoy a lower total compensation (Ral) than men with the same professional perimeter, the responsibility must be attributed to the companies, the same ones that proclaim equal opportunities in their code of ethics. But it is not that things are better in the family. We thought that the so-called gender bias manifested itself (only) in the pocket money disbursement phase: not only for the amount (greater in favor of boys) but also for regular attribution (also this typically male).
Girls also – according to research by the British Bank Halifax – show a low propensity to ask for increases: the first symptoms of what is described by Linda Babcock and Sara Laschever in Women don't Ask. A negotiating reluctance which, according to the authors, can lead women to give up, at the end of their career, up to half a million dollars... and sorry if it's not much.
But now three Italian academics, Elena Beccalli, Francesca Arnaboldi and Francesca Gioia, in a paper written strictly in English, Is it a boy or a girl? Newborn gender and household portfolio decisions, let us know that the differences, in terms of family investments, begin even earlier. Not in the cradle but in the womb. It makes you jump in the year Domini 2022, yet it is so.
Women and Finance: the gender of the firstborn drives investments
Italian families where the birth of a son is expected direct the allocation of their own savings towards more stable, less risky asset classes. The future of the baby cannot and must not be at risk because studies and a career must be guaranteed, perhaps even a home (for 70% of Italians, the first home is owned) and, after the financial crises of 2008 and 2011, also the annuities deriving from a supplementary pension which, by putting parents in safety, allows them to act as further support for the younger generations, feeding and supporting the fundamental pillar of family welfare.
If the stork heralds the arrival of a female, the orientation changes and not a little. Parents not only reduce the percentage of income going to children investments but they evaluate types with a higher degree of risk and long-term prospects. However, the gender of the first child determines the financial choices of the family.
Things are worse in less advantaged households, where the prevailing salary, if not the only one, is that of the father: fathers work harder for the family if the eldest son is a boy whose way is somehow paved for the future. The commitment is less if the first heir is a girl.
In short, being born a woman could condemn you to relative greater poverty from your first days and years of life. But you don't have to give up and fight to change things you can.
