Women and Financial Literacy: What the Gap Data Show and First Steps

On standard financial-knowledge quizzes, women in the US score lower than men, and the gap has persisted for as long as the major surveys have run. In the 2024 National Financial Capability Study, men answered 3.6 of seven questions correctly on average and women 2.9¹. A large part of that gap comes from women choosing "don't know" rather than giving wrong answers. The gaps that cost the most money are elsewhere: lower pay, more time out of paid work, and longer lives that the same savings have to cover.

More foundations, from budgeting to debt order, are in personal finance.

What the two main surveys found

FINRA Foundation: National Financial Capability Study

The NFCS has been run every three years since 2009. The latest wave was fielded from June to October 2024 among 25,539 adults, about 500 per state¹. Its quiz covers interest, inflation, risk and diversification, bond prices, mortgages, compound debt and probability. Only 46% of all respondents answered at least four of the seven questions correctly, and 4% answered all seven¹.

Look at how men and women answered, not only how often they were right:

2024 NFCS, average of 7 questions	Correct	"Don't know"	Incorrect
Men	3.6	1.7	1.6
Women	2.9	2.6	1.4

Source: FINRA Foundation¹.

Women gave fewer wrong answers than men. The difference sits almost entirely in "don't know." The gap also narrows with age group: one question at 55 and older, 0.6 at ages 35 to 54, and 0.3 at ages 18 to 34¹.

TIAA Institute-GFLEC Personal Finance Index

The P-Fin Index uses 28 questions across eight areas of everyday money management. Its 2026 survey of 3,602 adults was fielded in January 2026². Men answered 50% of the questions correctly on average and women 44%. The authors report that the gap is not explained by demographic differences alone².

2026 P-Fin area	Men	Women	Gap (points)
Borrowing	60%	56%	4
Saving	57%	51%	6
Consuming	48%	48%	0
Earning	48%	44%	4
Go-to information sources	50%	45%	5
Investing	50%	39%	11
Insuring	44%	38%	6
Comprehending risk	39%	33%	6

Source: TIAA Institute-GFLEC². Gap column is our subtraction.

Two details tend to get lost in coverage of this survey. On the retirement questions, men and women scored about the same overall (38% and 36%). And on the question about life expectancy in retirement, women did better: 36% correct against 30% for men². The largest gap is in investing, which is also the area with the most direct effect on long-term wealth. See on investing for the basics.

How much of the gap is "don't know"

Researchers at the Federal Reserve tested this directly. With a "don't know" option available, 43.9% of men and 23.7% of women answered three standard literacy questions correctly, a gap of 20.2 points. When the option was removed and everyone had to choose an answer, the shares became 63.1% and 50.8%, and the gap fell to 12.4 points³. On the diversification question, the gap almost disappeared: 84% of women and 85% of men answered correctly³.

So part of the measured gap is about confidence, not knowledge. The NFCS points the same way: 74% of men and 66% of women said they felt confident they could reach a financial goal they set¹. A real gap remains even without the "don't know" option, though, and it is largest in investing and risk. Both readings are supported by the data. Neither one supports the idea that women are "bad with money."

The gaps that cost money

Quiz scores matter mainly because of what they connect to. These are the gaps with dollar consequences, from the latest official data.

Gap	Latest figure	Source
Pay	Women working full time, year round earned 83.9% of men's median in 2025: $60,760 vs. $72,380	Census Bureau4
Longevity at birth	Life expectancy 81.4 years for women, 76.5 for men (2024)	CDC/NCHS5
Longevity at 65	20.8 more years for women, 18.4 for men (2024)	CDC/NCHS5
Social Security	Average retired-worker benefit $1,780 a month for women, $2,181 for men (December 2024)	SSA6
Early claiming	64.9% of women vs. 59.1% of men received reduced (pre-full-retirement-age) benefits	SSA6
Retirement account ownership	43.5% of women vs. 47.8% of men owned a retirement account (2020)	Census Bureau7

The ownership gap is the smallest of these. The bigger problem is the amounts that flow into accounts, and how long they have to last. By our arithmetic from the SSA figures, the average woman's retirement benefit is about 18% smaller than the average man's,⁶ while her life expectancy at 65 is about 13% longer.⁵

The Census pay figure also understates lifetime differences, because it covers only full-time, year-round workers. Time spent working part time or out of the workforce is not in it.

A worked example: how the pay gap compounds

Example, with our assumptions: two people each save 10% of the 2025 median full-time earnings for their sex, every year for 30 years, at a 5% real return, with contributions at year end.

• Saving 10% of $72,380 ($7,238 a year) grows to about $480,900.
• Saving 10% of $60,760 ($6,076 a year) grows to about $403,700.
• If the second saver also stops contributing for five years in years 11 to 15 (for example, caring for a child or a parent), the balance is about $333,900.

The same savings habit leaves the second saver with roughly 30% less, and that smaller balance is expected to cover more years.

Why the gaps exist, as documented

The sources point to causes, not character:

• Earnings. GAO notes that women have been overrepresented in low-wage occupations and often paid less than male counterparts⁸.
• Caregiving. Women are more likely to be the primary family caregiver for children, spouses and elderly relatives, and spend a disproportionate amount of time out of the workforce to do it, which reduces career earnings⁸.
• Longer lives. The same retirement savings have to stretch further⁵.
• Education and confidence. In GAO's focus groups, women in all 14 groups said a lack of personal finance education hurt their ability to plan for retirement⁸. The "don't know" pattern above fits this.

First steps that target the gaps

Each step below lines up with one of the gaps above.

1. Get your own numbers. Download your Social Security statement from the online account at ssa.gov and check that every year of earnings is recorded. Missing years mean a lower benefit.
2. Claim the full employer match. It is part of your pay. The savings rate guide shows how to count it and how much the rate changes your timeline.
3. Plan past the average. Life expectancy at 65 is an average, and many people live well beyond it. A retirement plan built to run out at the average will run short for a lot of people. The 4% rule guide explains how withdrawal rates relate to plan length.
4. Keep saving during career breaks if a spouse works. A married couple filing jointly may be able to contribute to an IRA for a spouse with little or no taxable compensation, up to the annual limit, as long as their combined contributions do not exceed the compensation on the joint return. For 2026 that limit is $7,500 per person, or $8,600 at age 50 or older⁹. The marriage and money section covers spousal IRAs and beneficiary designations.
5. Build the emergency fund first. Only 46% of adults in the 2024 NFCS said they had three months of expenses set aside¹. A cushion keeps a job change or caregiving gap from turning into debt. Budgeting strategies compares ways to get there.
6. Turn "don't know" into an answer. Investing and risk are where the knowledge gap is widest. Learning how index funds, fees and diversification work takes hours, not years.

Limits of the data

These surveys are good at showing patterns and weak at describing any one person. Both rely on self-reported answers from online panels. The NFCS report itself cautions that breakdowns of sub-populations may not be representative even though the overall sample is weighted to match the US population¹. Quiz questions test a handful of concepts, not the skills of running a household budget, comparing insurance quotes or negotiating pay. And the Census retirement account figure is from 2020, the most recent year in that release, so treat it as a rough indicator rather than a current measure.

None of this makes the gaps go away. It means the numbers describe groups, and your own starting point is better measured by your own statements, balances and benefit estimate.

Common misreadings of the data

"Women know less about money." The quiz gap is real but narrower than headlines suggest once "don't know" is accounted for, and it is smaller among younger adults.

"Fix the knowledge gap and the money gap closes." Knowledge does not change pay, caregiving demands or life expectancy. The steps above work on the money directly.

"Retirement account ownership is the problem." The ownership gap in Census data is about four points. Contribution amounts, time in the workforce and the length of retirement matter far more.