Retirement

Closing the gender gap in IRA balances

May 15, 2024

A bar chart showing the median IRA balance for men and women broken down by generation. The horizontal axis shows four generations—Gen Z, millennials, Gen X, and baby boomers—while the vertical axis shows the median IRA balance in thousands of dollars.  The median IRA balance for men is higher than the median IRA balance for women in all generations, and it is larger among older generations. The smallest gap is in Gen Z, where the median IRA balance for women is 98% of the median for men. For millennials, the median IRA balance for women is 88% of the median for men. For Gen X, the median IRA balance for women is 81% of the median for men. The largest gap is among baby boomers, where the median IRA balance for women is 63% of the median for men.
A table showing the median age when opening an IRA and the median number of years contributing for women and men over an eight-year sample, from 2015 through 2022. The median age at account opening is 32 for women and 30 for men, and the median number of years contributing is 5 for women and 6 for men.
A line chart showing the percentage of clients who did not make a subsequent trade after rolling over funds into an IRA. The percentage of clients who did not make a trade decreases over time for both men and women. For women, the percentage drops from 100% to 56% by the end of the first year and slowly declines to 33% by the end of the seventh year. For men, the number drops from 100% to 44% by the end of the first year and slowly declines to 23% by the end of the seventh year.

Contributors

Marsella Martino

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