A Research On Gender Differences In Financial Literacy And Retirement Plan

With the increasing trend of population aging, aged-supporting problem, especially women’s aged-supporting problem is particularly prominent. In order to enjoying retirement life, the desire that achieving value preservation and increasing wealth by individual’s own participation in retirement plan becomes stronger and stronger. In this context, a large number of foreign scholars are working on retirement plan issues.Firstly, on the basis of combing relevant theories and literature of retirement plan, we construct a theoretical framework of retirement plan and analyze the impact of demographic characteristics, health factors, psychological factor, family economic background, financial literacy on retirement plan behavior, with emphasis on exploring the role of financial literacy on retirement plan behavior. Based on gender theory around gender role expectations and gender stereotypes such as risk preference, achievement motivation, time preference, we study affecting mechanisms of gender differences of retirement plan.Second, we use the survey data from Financial Literacy Theory and Education Institute of Southeast University in 2014 to analyze gender differences in factors affecting retirement plan. To study the impact of financial literacy on the individual retirement plan behavior, we divide financial literacy into basic financial literacy and advanced financial literacy to discuss gender differences in financial literacy; Then, using the whole sample data, we study the influence of demographic characteristics, health factors, psychological factor, financial literacy, gender stereotypes on the behavior of retirement plan, and the preliminary analysis of gender differences in retirement plan; To further explore gender differences in factors affecting retirement plan behavior, we study factors affecting retirement plan of two populations respectively using two sub-samples of men and women.Studies on financial literacy show that the level of financial literacy of individual is generally low. Women’s financial literacy is generally lower than men and women are more likely to be aware of their own lack of financial literacy. Research on whole sample shows that men and women’s retirement plan has no gender difference. Although gender difference in financial literacy doesn’t reflect on the behavior of the retirement plan directly, but we can find the higher advanced financial literacy someone have, the more possibility to participate in retirement plan, and lacking of advanced financial literacy will reduce the possibility to participate in retirement plan from whole sample study.Research on two sub-samples shows different affecting factors of retirement plan in men and women. This explains the reason why gender difference in financial literacy doesn’t reflect on the behavior of the retirement plan directly. The deep-rooted reason of this difference lies on strength of social cultural to gender difference, called gender role expectations and gender stereotypes.Third, to avoid impact of endogeneity of financial literacy and sample selection bias on retirement plan, we conduct endogenous test and robustness test. Endogenous test shows that there is no endogeneity in retirement plan model. Robustness test shows the robustness of the empirical results of this paper.Finally, based on the empirical results, we propose some measures from three aspects:government, financial institutions and individuals.