Gender Differences in Financial Advice

Abstract

Based on data gathered from 27,000 real-world meetings between financial advisors and clients of a large German bank, we show that advisors offer more self-serving advice to women, while men are more likely to receive sales fee rebates and less likely to be recommended expensive bank-owned funds. Additional client and advisor surveys provide evidence consistent with statistical discrimination based on gender as a proxy for client financial sophistication with female clients exhibiting lower literacy, confidence, and price sensitivity. Moreover, female advisors report less confidence in their own professional skills and engage in less discrimination than their male colleagues.

Keywords: Financial sophistication, financial literacy, statistical discrimination, gender economics

JEL Classification: G02, E02, D08