A study by the "la Caixa" Foundation shows that there is a gender gap with regard to wealth from the age of 65 onwards

Wealth is a key economic resource for the elderly population, who often have little income. In Spain, older women are more likely than older men to live in households with very low wealth and are therefore at higher risk of severe economic deprivation.

This is one of the main conclusions of the study "Do men live in households with more wealth than women?", by the Social Observatory of the "la Caixa" Foundation, conducted by researcher Diederik Boertien, of the Centre for Demographic Studies.

For the last two decades, increasing attention has been paid to wealth - or patrimony - as a fundamental independent component of people's economic situation. Wealth refers to the value of possessions - such as housing, money in the bank, savings, stocks and businesses - minus any amounts owed on those assets - such as mortgages and loans.

Therefore, if one wants to get a full picture of gender differences in economic resources, one must also ask the question: Is there a gender gap in wealth?

This study shows that older men live in households with more wealth than older women: they have around 16,000 euros more in equivalent average wealth. This difference is not found in the lower age groups, although it is possible that men have more control over household wealth than women, something that could not be verified in this study.

In addition, around 31% of women over 65 have less than 2,000 euros of available financial wealth, compared with 25% of men over 65.

As women are more likely to have lost their partner in old age, they are at a higher risk of living in households with very low levels of wealth and, in particular, very low levels of financial wealth. This can have serious consequences for older women, as wealth is probably the most important factor for financial well-being in old age.

The graph below shows the percentage of men and women living in households with a given level of total household wealth, indicated in the first two columns of the graph. The other two columns show the results obtained using the above-mentioned wealth equivalent, which takes into account the number of members in a household. Compared to men, older women are more likely to live in households that are very vulnerable with respect to wealth.

Thus, 9.6% of women over 65, for example, live in households with less than 10,000 euros of disposable wealth, compared to 6.8% of men over 65.

The aim of the Social Observatory of the "la Caixa" Foundation is to provide diagnoses of the social reality in the areas of knowledge related to the main areas of action of the "la Caixa" Foundation: social, educational, cultural and research.