Gender role asymmetry and stock market participation

What is it about?

Stock market participation is important for wealth accumulation of both women and men. This study investigates how gender role asymmetry in the society shapes women's and men's decision to participate in the stock market. Using data from four national household surveys, we find that in Italy – the country with highly asymmetric gender role prescriptions – women refrain from stock market participation more than their self-reported risk attitude would suggest. In contrast, in the three countries with a strongly lower gender role asymmetry, no exaggerated female backing off from investing in risky stocks is observable. The result is robust to separately analyzing sub-samples of singles and couples. Our findings propose that more symmetric Gender role prescriptions in the society may contribute to reducing the old-age provision gap between women and men.

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Why is it important?

We show that asymmetric gender role prescriptions in the society most likely have an impact on the wealth gap between women and men via the investment-in-stocks channel. Thus, social strategies to reduce gender role asymmetry are particularly important if periods with extremely low interest rates persist for many years.