A study of five European markets by the Mobile Bank N26 suggests women save more than men with significantly smaller budgets
A new study published on International Women´s Day 2023 by N26 states that women in Europe save 28 percent more than men, even though they earn significantly lesser than them.
N26 dug into the financial habits of women in five of its core European markets in order to prepare this study which includes Austria, France, Germany, Italy and Spain.
“The basis of the research is the analysis of the anonymized spending and saving data of over 2.7 million N26 customers in the above-mentioned markets during the period of January 2022 to January 2023”, said a statement by N26.
The study found that against the background of rising costs and prices, women are particularly under financial pressure as their monthly budgets are significantly smaller than their male counterparts.
However, despite having less disposable monthly funds, women demonstrated a greater capacity for planning and saving over the past year, in the various European countries analyzed.
The report said, “While they had on average 30% less money per month in 2022, they managed to save 11% more per month in the first half of 2022, and even 28% more than men in the second half of the year”.
As per Leila Maria Kehl, Group Strategy Manager at N26 and founding member of the N26 Women+ ERG, this is due to socio-economic reasons as well as gender patterns.
“Globally, women do 75% of care work – an average of 4 hours and 25 minutes a day – more than three times as much as their male counterparts” she said.
“This often involves setting aside money for children and the elderly. At the same time, women perceive a higher personal financial risk than men, which they often try to mitigate through saving”, she continued.
She added, “Women are 80% more likely to be impoverished at age 65 or older, only 2% of VC [venture capital] money in Europe goes to all-women startups), and unpaid care work also contribute to the financial discrepancy.”
According to the study, Spanish women saved the most during the second half of 2022, and second most (only Austrian women saved more) in the first half of the year.
“Speaking in numbers: Austrian women set aside 9% of their monthly available funds between January and June, followed by Spanish women who stashed 8% of their monthly incoming budget, while German women saved 7%. French women saved least, with 2%”, the report said.
It added, “Between July and December 2022, Spanish women’s savings (in relation to their available monthly funds) decreased by 1%, coinciding with the rise in prices from June onwards”.
It concluded, “However, despite the fact that Spain was affected by a higher inflation rate than most other European countries’ economies during that time, Spanish women were the biggest savers in Europe compared to Austrian and German women, who saved 6% of their monthly available funds, and Italian women, who saved 1% in the second half of the year”.
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