Gender divide on financial literacy.

[6miths]

Buddy Hackett joke from back in the day

Husband and wife in elevator in Vegas hotel. Wife tells husband she lost $50 gambling, husband starts yelling at her. Wife responds “you lost even more”. Husband says “ yeah, but I know how to gamble”.

Morningstar says there is no significant difference in mutual fund performance when controlling for gender.

Good joke. And I thought that there was some evidence that women had marginally better returns when compared to men. IIRC it was mainly attributed to less trading. Maybe there are newer and better studies.

 

[scrabbler1]

Growing up in the 60s and 70s, I figured out very quickly that the culture encouraged women to look to marriage for their financial security. As divorce rates skyrocketed from 1965 to 1980 many women found themselves in an extremely insecure financial situations, often with children to raise alone. It was imperative to me to achieve financial independence on my own in the sense that I would support myself financially.

It's honestly hard for me to envision women feeling pride in not having to dirty their hands with money. Is this the trophy wife set? I never actually met a trophy wife.

Your post reminded me of a book I read back in 2008, The Feminine Mistake, by Leslie Bennetts. It's about how women endanger themselves by becoming economically dependent on their husbands, then their husbands pass away, become disabled, or divorce them.

https://www.amazon.com/Feminine-Mistake-Are-Giving-Much/dp/1401309380

 

[MarieIG]

Not sure that I have a specific question, maybe just want to see others experiences.

So my lovely city has decided to do a city wide reassessment on property and it's been a huge cluster*%$ to put it mildly. anyhoo my property taxes went from 5700 in 2018 to an estimated 11, 800 this year. Needless to say I'm contesting it.

Last night I was talking to my neighbors in the alleyway and asked everyone what their reassessed numbers were and 2 of the ladies said..."oh I have no idea hubby handles all the finances".

I was really really surprised by this, both work and both are college educated ladies, not that that should make a difference. Both said they had no idea of the household budget.

Now I cannot criticize too harshly because when my husband passed away I did not know a lot about investing but I most definitely knew how much we spent and our salaries etc etc. in fact that is really how I got here because when hubby died I had to make decisions about his 401k, life insurance payouts etc.

Anyway do you think women are more likely to leave the financial lifting to the guys even today?

Not in my house.

Some homes have two spouse who are interested in finances and some one. The real problem comes in where one spouse is totally out of control, or neither spouse has any sense of fiscal responsibility.

Obviously, the optimal scenario is two fiscally responsible and financially educated spouses.

 

[Sue J]

My wonderful DH may avoid money discussions but he is 100% cooperative in doing what it takes to live below our means because that keeps him retired.

 

[reneeh63]

Good joke. And I thought that there was some evidence that women had marginally better returns when compared to men. IIRC it was mainly attributed to less trading. Maybe there are newer and better studies.

I read that same study. I wonder if this recent "study" done by Morningstar (I don't know how stringently it was done) is somewhat self-selecting in terms of the overall population because they attract a larger proportion of mutual fund only "traders". This would serve to attenuate any general tendency for men to trade often. Even a study done a few years ago at a broader brokerage would be more likely to attract more men who are more into individual stock "day trading" which has fallen a bit out of favor these days.

 

[MichaelB]

And I thought that there was some evidence that women had marginally better returns when compared to men. IIRC it was mainly attributed to less trading. Maybe there are newer and better studies.

I had the same impression - that women fund managers are better investors - but can't find the link.

I read that same study. I wonder if this recent "study" done by Morningstar (I don't know how stringently it was done) is somewhat self-selecting in terms of the overall population because they attract a larger proportion of mutual fund only "traders". This would serve to attenuate any general tendency for men to trade often. Even a study done a few years ago at a broader brokerage would be more likely to attract more men who are more into individual stock "day trading" which has fallen a bit out of favor these days.

It is self-selecting. The purpose of the study was to test the hypothesis that male fund managers had better investment performance, which would explain why over 90% of fund hires are men.

 

[SpinDoctorTX]

LOL - Excel is my binkie.

DH pays all the bills, I mind the investments. He's (unnecessarily) intimidated by investments, but I know he would pick up the basics quickly if I check out first.

That's exactly what we do. I manage the big stuff (my 401k rolled into IRA) and our liquid assets.

He pays the bills and moves money around from various accounts into our short term paying bills account.

I like not dealing with the day to day junk, but I've done it before and could do it again. DH likes handling the minutia, and keeping track of where we are budget wise throughout the year. Since we aren't big spenders, we can always think up a way to use any overages on experiences. In Q1 we had about $900. remaining so we're using that as our "down-payment "on a camping/ hiking trip before school lets out during May.

 

[kgtest]

My wife whipped me into shape financially in my 30s. She paid all the bills for years. As soon as things went online she handed me the mouse and told me to take over. She just wasn't interested. So now she lets me handle the accounts, bills, taxes, everything. But she has a document showing where everything is and how it works and could take over fairly easily if I died.

DW doesn't like making investment decisions for whatever reasons...analysis paralysis, fear of the unknown... but she won't shy away from trying a new recipe, or baking something new. Sort of like I am not afraid to fix my own cars and things that break.

As her Dr father said...I tend to involve myself with things I am interested in as it's fun, investing is not something I am interested in.

I really enjoy math, problem solving, and doing math equations in my head all day long..I am analytical to a fault...she enjoys the feelings she and others have from her helping them. (soc svcs). It works for us. She isn't afraid to mow the lawn, and she does tally our debt, as she is more concerned with risk today, than reward tomorrow.

 

[GravitySucks]

DW never cared to delve deep into finances and was bad at making sure bills were paid on time so I handled the investing and Bill paying.
She was great at keeping expenses down and the daughters dressed well. She liked shopping, I hate it.

 

[Retch The Grate]

DW and I in general run everything out of our shared checking account. We have some recurring household bills (Internet, water, etc.) that one or the other of us pays because we've been too lazy to redirect it to our joint account. I do the taxes (sigh), she finds american paperwork around that insane. We manage our personal money separately, I try to get her to do better planning with hers, but she's not super interested (and since she doesn't want to stay in the US, she is skeptical about her 401k, tying money up in investments, etc). I try not to overwhelm her with financial talk, since she is not interested, but I do try to trigger those conversations from time to time to try and make sure things are at least quasi-reasonable at any time.

 

[flintnational]

My DW handles the bills and budget and I handle the investing. Okay, her part requires a lot more work. But, I do keep her in the loop on the investing. We are 70% stock index funds and 30% short term bond index funds. Now you are in the loop also. My job is pretty easy. Did I mention I do have to complete an annual rebalance? Please don't tell the DW she is getting the short end of this deal.