“Buy him some Tesla stocks for his baptism”: Gender differences among young savers

This paper investigates gender roles in children’s savings. It uses a sample of more than 58,000 children to investigate overall gender roles, specified as differences pertaining to age, capital invested, financial activity and portfolio composition. We conclude that there are gender differences between young female and male account holders. Boys in the sample are significantly older and are more active savers, while girls hold more capital in their accounts. We find that these gender differences increase with age, capital and activity. Focusing on the level of activity, mirroring financial interest, we note that activity interacts significantly with both gender, age and capital, and is decisive in explaining financial behaviour, especially that of boys. Somewhat surprisingly, we conclude that girls have a significantly lower share of saving in direct owned stock compared to boys, already before the age of one. This difference lingers throughout childhood and peaks for children aged 15-17. We discuss our findings within the realms of structuration theory, proposing that our sample enables us to distinguish between the mixture of implicit and explicit parental financial behaviour that prevails among adolescents, and the case where parents take care of saving for their very young children. For policymakers and managers, awareness that substantial gender differences regarding financial behaviour still prevail is an important insight.