Fancy Dress

HOW FINANCIALLY LITERATE ARE WOMEN? AN OVERVIEW AND NEW INSIGHTS

Hei-ock Kim

We document strikingly similar gender differences in financial literacy across countries. When asked
to answer questions that measure knowledge of basic financial concepts, women are less likely than
men to answer correctly and more likely to indicate that they do not know the answer. In addition,
women give themselves lower scores on financial literacy self-assessments than men. Both young
and old women show low levels of financial literacy. Moreover, women for whom financial knowledge
is likely to be very important—for example widows or single women—know little about concepts
relevant for day-to-day financial decisions. Even women in favorable economic conditions are less
financially knowledgeable than men. This is important because financial literacy has been linked to
economic behavior, including retirement planning and wealth accumulation. Women live longer than
men and are likely to spend time in widowhood. As a result, improving women’s financial literacy
is key to helping them prepare for retirement and promoting their financial security.

Women Are better than Men at Paying Their Mortgages

Women Are Better than Men at Paying Their Mortgages

kendra

Looking at loan performance for the first time by gender, however, we find that these weaker credit profiles do not translate neatly into weaker performance. In fact, when credit characteristics are held constant, women actually perform better than men. Nonetheless, since pricing is tied to credit characteristics not performance, women actually pay more relative to theiractual risk than do men.Ironically, despite their better performance, women are more likely to be denied a mortgage than men .Given that more than one-third of female only borrowers are minorities and almost half of them live in low-income communities, we need to develop more robust and accurate measures of risk to ensure that we aren’t denying mortgages to women who are fully able to make good on their payments.

50 Ways to Fight Bias Cards

50 Ways to Fight Bias: an activity that helps you combat bias at work

kendra

Gender bias is holding women back in the workplace. Whether deliberate or unconscious, bias makes it harder for women to get hired and promoted and negatively impacts their day-to-day work experiences. This hurts women and makes it difficult for companies to level the playing field.

Pairing a card-based activity with a short video series, 50 Ways to Fight Bias gives people the tools to address gender bias head-on.

South American Women

The World Bank: Women, Business and the Law

Hei-ock Kim

Women, Business and the Law (WBL) is a World Bank Group project collecting unique data on the laws and regulations that restrict women’s economic opportunities. OUR MISSION When societies get to equal, economies become more resilient. That’s why WBL is committed to informing research and policy discussions about the state of women’s economic opportunities and empowerment. The report celebrates the …

Christine Blasey Ford and Brett Kavanaugh

Rebecca Traister on the power of women’s (and men’s) anger

Hei-ock Kim

CBS NEWS September 30, 2018 By Rebecca Traister Last Thursday’s Supreme Court confirmation hearing was seen by millions and millions of Americans, including Rebecca Traister, author of “Good and Mad: The Revolutionary Power of Women’s Anger”: If you watched the testimony of Christine Blasey Ford and Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh on Thursday, you might have noticed that the two …

The Lifelong Effects Of The Gender Wage Gap

Hei-ock Kim

THINKPROGRESS September 3, 2015 By Bryce Covert When men and women’s incomes and retirement savings are stacked up against their projected health care costs and life expectancies, women are much farther behind men. At the same time, women will end up needing to make their money stretch further. A new report from Financial Finesse found that both genders won’t have …

Marc Benioff

Leading by example to close the gender pay gap

Hei-ock Kim

Unequal pay between men and women is a persistent problem in the United States. Salesforce, a tech company with 30,000 employees, is doing its part to change that 60 Minutes April 15, 2018 By Lesley Stahl The “Me Too” movement has shaken the workplace to its core. It has such power that it has come to mean more than sexual …

Male and Female Symbols On a Scale

How four leading UK companies are achieving gender balance

Hei-ock Kim

CMI February 2, 2017 By Michelle Perry Of all the strategies that organisations can employ to ensure a gender-balanced workplace, executives say sponsorship (when a senior executive “sponsors” the development of another member of the team) is one of the most effective – both for promoting women to senior roles, and in terms of the speed with which it can …