Exploring the Effects of Generation X on the Gender Wealth Gap in the United States

Women in the United States (U.S.) have less accumulated wealth than men, as evidenced by more women living in poverty than men and less women being among the wealthy than their male cohorts. The phenomenon of men having higher net worth than women, known as the gender wealth gap, affects women's quality of life. The gender wealth gap has narrowed For Generation X because factors that traditionally contributed to the gender earnings gap do not affect members of this group as much as prior generations. The problem was that it has been unknown whether Generation X women, in comparison to women of prior generations, were accumulating as much wealth as their male cohorts. The purpose of this quantitative trend analysis study was to examine the gender wealth gap in the U.S. over the period 1992 -- 2007 in order to determine whether Generation X women, compared to women in prior generations, were accumulating as much wealth as their male cohorts. The 8,676 participants in this quantitative trend analysis study were respondents to the Survey of Consumer Finances (SCF), who were unmarried adult taxpayers in the U.S. at the time of participation. The study period was 1992 through 2007, and the data for the study comes from the triennial SCF. The net worth values of two groups, unmarried male respondents and unmarried female respondents, were compared using Mann-Whitney U tests and ANOVA, which indicated that the two groups were not similar, with p<1.001. Therefore, the gender wealth gap existed in the U.S. throughout the study period. The trends in the gender wealth gap differed by generational cohort throughout the study period. The gender wealth gap has narrowed for Generation X over the study period, while the gender wealth gap for Traditionalists and Baby Boomers continued to widen during the same period. It can be concluded that the gender wealth gap will continue to narrow if future generations have similar characteristics to those of Generation X. It is recommended that future studies examine specific factors that influence the gender wealth gap by generation, and identify ways to promote financial equity within particular generations.