Gender and wealth accumulation: an international perspective

Why do women accumulate less wealth than men globally? As wealth inequality rises both within countries and worldwide, studies on gender and wealth accumulation are growing rapidly. This scholarship is spread across various disciplines, including development studies, feminist economics, economic sociology, anthropology, finance, business, demography, political science, history, and legal studies. In this introduction to the special issue, we outline the methodological challenges in quantifying gender wealth gaps. We also describe the key factors contributing to these disparities, such as gendered labour divisions, lifetime earnings inequality, differing investment portfolios (e.g., in business ownership, real estate, financial assets), and varying rates of return. Additionally, we examine how marital property and inheritance laws contribute to the gendered reproduction of wealth concentration.Importantly, this introduction presents the eight articles featured in this special issue, which offer new perspectives on the relationship between gender and wealth in different national contexts in Africa, North America, Europe and Asia.