What is the gender financing gap?

Asked by: Rafael Kohler  |  Last update: February 13, 2026
Score: 4.8/5 (61 votes)

Estimates show a $1.7 trillion financing gap worldwide for small- and medium-sized enterprises owned by women. Studies show that when women do secure business loans, the amounts tend to be smaller, have higher interest rates and require more collateral, which restricts the economic potential of women-led ventures.

What is the gender funding gap?

Women are underrepresented as investors and they are also underfunded in their businesses as founders. The gender funding gap describes the disparity between investment funding and venture capital allocated to female entrepreneurs versus their male counterparts.

What is the gender pay gap in finance?

A Look at the Finance Sector Gender Pay Gap

The average hourly wage for male workers is $40, while the average rate for female workers is only $27 per hour. As a whole, the industry has an average wage of just under $33 per hour. Turnover rates for both women and men in the finance sector are equal at 2.2% per month.

What is the gender gap in simple terms?

Gap in any area between women and men in terms of their levels of participation, access, rights, remuneration or benefits.

What is the gender investment gap?

Women spend less time investing than men

The downside being that excessive trading was said to reduce men's net returns by 2.65% a year, as opposed to 1.72% for women. The picture hasn't exactly shifted over the decades. By 2020, Vanguard revealed that 50% of women were less likely than men to trade actively.

The Finance Gender Gap

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What is the current gender gap?

The gender pay gap – the difference between the median earnings of men and women – has remained relatively flat in the United States over the past two decades, according to an analysis of hourly earnings of full- and part-time workers. In 2022, U.S. women typically earned 82 cents for every dollar men earned.

Is the gender pay gap a big issue?

The gender pay gap has been declining slowly over time; over the last decade it has fallen by approximately a quarter among full-time employees, and in April 2023 it stands at 7.7%. There remains a large difference in the gender pay gap between employees aged 40 years and over and those aged under 40 years.

What is an example of the gender pay gap?

Overall, women are paid less than men.

For instance, Hispanic women ($41,137 median annual salary) make 13% less than Hispanic men ($47,420 median annual salary). This inequity is even greater for Black and Hispanic women when compared to white, non-Hispanic men.

What are the disadvantages of the gender gap?

Gender stereotypes have negative effects on people of all genders. Women are worse off by almost every measure. Whether it's the pay gap, time spent doing unpaid care, high rates of gendered violence, or not enough women in leadership and public spaces, it comes back to one thing. Gender inequality.

What are the arguments against the gender pay gap?

The prevailing argument against the legitimacy of the gender wage gap is that women appear to be paid less than men because they're in different types of jobs, often ones that require less experience, less sophisticated skillsets, or less time commitments.

How male dominated is finance?

More men study finance than women—but there's an even bigger discrepancy in faculty. Only about 16% of those teaching finance in higher education are women. That bleeds into the culture of the finance industry.

What is the concept of gender pay gap?

An average gender pay gap is the difference between the average earnings for men and women, expressed as a percentage of men's average earnings.

Why are there so many men in finance?

Key Takeaways. Women and men begin closer to parity at the start of their careers in finance, but the C-suite is still largely dominated by men. There are comparatively few women role models and mentors in finance, and this may account for some of the gender disparity in top roles.

Is there a gender pay gap in finance?

Bankrate looked at the gender pay gap across more than 25 industries and found that the pay gap was largest in the finance and insurance industries. In this field, women made up 54 percent of workers in 2022, but they earned 61 cents on the dollar, on average, compared to men, Census Bureau data shows.

What is an example of a funding gap?

A funding gap may occur when a federal agency lacks the authority to allocate or spend funds. The closure of national parks during government shutdowns is a typical result of such funding gaps.

Why is the gender pay gap so big?

Causes. Women's labor is undervalued. Most of the disparity in women and men's pay cannot be explained by measurable differences between them. Out of the causes of the wage gap that we can measure, the main contributor is that women are more likely than men to work in low-paying jobs that offer fewer benefits.

What are the problems with gender pay gap?

The gender pay gap increases with age throughout the career and alongside increasing family demands, while it is rather low when women enter the labour market. With less money to save and invest, these gaps accumulate and women are consequently at a higher risk of poverty and social exclusion at an older age.

Why is gender gap a problem?

Women and girls have less access to education and healthcare, too often lack economic autonomy and are under-represented in decision-making at all levels. The progress that has been made towards gender equality over the past quarter of a century, though slow and incremental, does however show that change is possible.

What is the opposite of the gender gap?

Gender equality is the opposite of gender inequality, not of gender difference, and aims to promote the full participation of women and men in society. It means accepting and valuing equally the differences between women and men and the diverse roles they play in society.

Why is there a pink tax?

There are many reasons why the pink tax exists, including tariffs, product discrimination, and product differentiation. There are many suggested causes of this discrepancy, including price elasticity and the belief that women are more prepared than men to pay higher prices for their purchases.

What is the glass ceiling concept?

Key Takeaways. The glass ceiling is a colloquial term for the social barrier preventing women from being promoted to top jobs in management. The term has been broadened to include discrimination against minorities. Marilyn Loden coined the phrase "glass ceiling" at a 1978 Women's Exposition.

What jobs have the biggest gender pay gap?

Of the 20 largest occupations for women studied as part of IWPR's research, the five with the worst pay inequities were:
  • Financial Managers, where women only earn 71% of what men earn.
  • Retail Salesperson—72%
  • Education and Childcare Administrators—79%
  • Administrative Assistants—80%
  • Managers—81%

Will the gender pay gap ever end?

If the gender wage gap continues on the same path it took from 2000 to 2023, it would take until 2068 for it to close for women working full time, year round. Authors' calculations using Table A-7 from U.S. Census Bureau, “Income in the United States: 2023” (2024).

How to fix the gender pay gap?

How to overcome the gender pay gap
  1. Support Promotion and Pay Transparency. ...
  2. Encourage Salary Negotiations. ...
  3. Re-evaluate hiring, promotion, bonus and benefit packages. ...
  4. Encourage Male Parental Leave. ...
  5. Encourage Remote Working. ...
  6. Diversity, Unconscious Bias and Conscious Inclusion Training.