Shaping women's fortunes : inheritance and gender disparities

Women are more dependent on intra- and inter-generational transfers for wealth accumulation than men (Bartels et al. 2023, Black et al. 2022), yet the role of inheritance in closing gender wealth gaps remains poorly understood. Using Swedish registry inheritance data between 2002-2004 and panel data on individual wealth portfolios and labour income from 1999-2007, we compare the evolution of women and men's wealth and income pre and post inheriting. Results indicate that inheritance does not facilitate a convergence between women and men's wealth in the longer term. The evidence suggests that gender differences in wealth portfolio composition play a role, whereby women are more likely to store inheritance in assets that provide little capital growth. This difference is less pronounced among younger cohorts. As such, we posit that differences in portfolio evolution for older women are explained by structural barriers to wealth accumulation that accrue over the lifecycle. Moreover, women appear to reduce their labour supply proportionally more than men after losing a parent, which would further exacerbate diverging wealth accumulation trajectories. By disentangling the effect of losing a parent from receiving an inheritance, we attribute the larger effect to care responsibilities. Considering these results, inheritance should not be considered an effective tool to reduce gender inequality, as it makes no permanent difference to gender wealth gaps.