Bertocchi, Graziella () (University of Modena and Reggio Emilia) Brunetti, Marianna () (University of Rome Tor Vergata) Torricelli, Costanza () (University of Modena and Reggio Emilia)
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We study the joint impact of gender and marital status on financial decisions. First, we test the hypothesis that marriage represents - in a portfolio framework - a sort of safe asset, and that this effect is stronger for women. Controlling for a number of observable characteristics, we show that single women have a lower propensity to invest in risky assets than married females and males. Second, we show that the differential behavior of single women evolves over time, reflecting the increasing incidence of divorce and the expansion of female labor market participation. In particular, towards the end of our sample period, we observe a reduction in the gap between women with different family status, which can be attributed to the gradual erosion of the perception of marriage as a sort of safe asset. Our results therefore suggest that the differential behavior of single vs. married women can be explained by the evolution of gender roles in society, even after controlling for differential risk attitudes. Our empirical investigation is based on a dataset drawn from the 1989-2006 Bank of Italy Survey of Household Income and Wealth.
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Paper provided by Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA) in its series IZA Discussion Papers with number
3975.
References listed on IDEAS Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
Ignazio Visco & Barry Eichengreen & Gilles Mourre & Declan Costello & Giuseppe Carone & Nuria Diez Guardia & Bartosz Przywara & Aino Salomäki & Vincenzo Galasso & Mark Weth & Sebastian Schich & Etien, 2007.
"Money, Finance and Demography: The Consequences of Ageing,"
SUERF Colloquium Volumes,
SUERF - The European Money and Finance Forum, number 1 edited by Morten Balling & Ernest Gnan & Frank Lierman, November.
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