Women breadwinners less engaged with household finances

Even when women are household breadwinners, many don’t seem to have an appetite for equitably participating in financial strategy, according to a report released Tuesday by UBS.

The national study of households in which women earned as much or more than their male partners showed that 52% of the women were substantially engaged in long-term investing strategies for their households, compared to 83% of men; 48% of the women were engaged in financial planning, compared to 78% of men; and 40% of the women were engaged in estate planning, compared to 66% of men.

The gap was nearly the same for tactical financial management, with 51% of the women involved in paying bills, compared to 79% of men. Only when it came to household daily spending did the spread narrow, with 44% of the breadwinning women having hands-on responsibility, compared to 57% of men.

According to a Pew Research Center analysis released in April, men are the primary earners in 55% of American households and women in 16%, while both partners earned the same amount in 29%.

It’s important, though, not to assume that any woman client who works will take a step back in planning, cautioned Kay Lynn Mayhue, president and partner with Merit Financial Advisors.

“I’ve worked with a lot of successful women in my twenty years as an advisor, and many of them were incredibly involved” with family finances, she said.

The UBS study appears to echo a longstanding cultural stereotype that regardless of a woman’s earnings, men properly should guide household financial strategy. A 2017 report from the Pew Research Center found that though at the time, 31% of women earned as much or more than their partners, 71% of adults believed that being a good provider was integral to male household leadership — twice the number who believed the same of women.