The Gender Gap in Pension Savings: Evidence from Peru's Individual Capitalization System

Javier Olivera, Yadiraah Iparraguirre

Research output: Working paper

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Abstract

This article studies the gender gap in pension funds in Peru, a country where the main pension system is based on individual retirement accounts. We use randomly selected samples of individual administrative pension fund records, collected between 2005 and 2019. The results show a gender gap in favor of men at each percentile of the distribution of pension funds. The unconditional gender gap decreases along the percentiles until it reaches a form of “glass ceiling” around the 85th percentile, and then increases substantially. We also detect heterogeneity by birth cohorts, with older cohorts showing larger gender gaps in pension savings because of the capitalization process. Moreover, we find that awareness about pension fund risk management—used as a proxy for financial literacy—increases the dispersion of pension savings over the distribution, therefore increasing inequality and the gender gap. This situation is aggravated by the fact that Peru has very low levels of financial literacy.
Original languageEnglish
Place of PublicationEsch-sur-Alzette
PublisherLISER
Number of pages40
Publication statusPublished - 15 Sept 2022

Publication series

NameWorking papers
PublisherLISER
No.2022-06
ISSN (Electronic)2716-7445

Keywords

  • gender gap
  • pension savings
  • financial literacy
  • unconditional quantile
  • peru

LISER Collections

  • Les working papers du Liser

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