Examining the gender wealth gap in Germany

"Welfare-oriented analyses of economic outcome measures such as income and wealth generally rest on the assumption of pooled and equally shared resources among all household members. Yet the lack of individual-level data hampers the distribution of income and wealth within the household context...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Sierminska, Eva M., Frick, Joachim R., Grabka, Markus
Institution:ETUI-European Trade Union Institute
Format: TEXT
Language:English
Published: Berlin 2008
DIW
Subjects:
Online Access:https://www.labourline.org/KENTIKA-19180687124919088699-examining-the-gender-wealth-ga.htm
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author Sierminska, Eva M.
Frick, Joachim R.
Grabka, Markus
author_facet Sierminska, Eva M.
Frick, Joachim R.
Grabka, Markus
collection Library items
description "Welfare-oriented analyses of economic outcome measures such as income and wealth generally rest on the assumption of pooled and equally shared resources among all household members. Yet the lack of individual-level data hampers the distribution of income and wealth within the household context. Based on unique individual-level wealth data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP), this paper challenges the implicit assumption of internal redistribution by considering an alternative definition of the aggregation unit and by controlling its effect on distribution and inequality analysis. We find empirical evidence for a significant gender wealth gap of about 30,000 euros in Germany, which amounts to almost 50,000 euros for married partners. Decomposition analyses reveal that this gap is mostly driven by differences in characteristics between men and women, the most important factor being the individual's own income and labor market experience, and particularly so at the bottom and top of the wealth distribution. However, this finding can only be shown with non-parametric decomposition techniques. Differences for those in the middle of the distribution appear to be mostly driven by the wealth function, i.e., the way in which women transform their characteristics into wealth."
format TEXT
geographic Germany
id 19180687124919088699_aa7cce032a734c31a84d28274bba5196
institution ETUI-European Trade Union Institute
is_hierarchy_id 19180687124919088699_aa7cce032a734c31a84d28274bba5196
is_hierarchy_title Examining the gender wealth gap in Germany
language English
physical 44 p.
Digital
publishDate 2008
publisher Berlin
DIW
spellingShingle Sierminska, Eva M.
Frick, Joachim R.
Grabka, Markus
gender
income
statistics
wealth
gender equality
Examining the gender wealth gap in Germany
thumbnail https://www.labourline.org/Image_prev.jpg?Archive=117117993539
title Examining the gender wealth gap in Germany
topic gender
income
statistics
wealth
gender equality
url https://www.labourline.org/KENTIKA-19180687124919088699-examining-the-gender-wealth-ga.htm