In recent decades, we have watched as girls have caught up with boys academically and then surpassed them along many dimensions of performance. But there appears to be at least one category in which boys still outperform girls, and that’s knowledge of money. As reported in the New York Times, T.Rowe Price’s annual survey of 8 to 14 year olds indicates that 45 percent of boys report feeling very or extremely confident about money compared to about 38 percent of girls.
According to the surveyed children, parents spoke with 58 percent of boys about establishing financial goals, but communicated with just 50 percent of girls. Parents seem to understand that this disparity exists. 80 percent of parents who have a boy say that they believe their child understands the value of a dollar compared to just 69 percent of those with a girl.
These results overlap with those from a 2011 Charles Schwab survey, which indicated that boys also have higher financial expectations than girls. In that survey, boys stated that they expected a higher starting salary than did the girls – the difference being more than $13,000 and also expect to have higher earnings once they are established in their respective careers.
