Parents short-changing girls on pocket money

The gender pay gap starts early and in the home, according to a survey which reveals boys get more pocket money than girls.

A poll of 2,000 British children by market research agency Childwise found parents give sons aged five to 16 an average £2.20 more each week than daughters of the same age - and the difference widens as children get older.

Parents also teach girls and boys differently about money, with boys allowed more financial independence.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

Childwise research manager Jenny Ehren said: "The data points towards an early gender imbalance in the way parents educate their children about money matters and financial independence."Boys are more likely to be entrusted with regular cash payments, while girls are more reliant on other people buying them items, or managing money on their behalf."

Extra purchases helped to bridge the pay gap, but the approach to managing money was "noticeably different", she added.

Halifax reported similar findings in its annual survey on pocket money trends late last year, saying boys are given an average of £6.93 per week, almost 13 per cent more than the £6.16 typically given to girls.It also said boys are more likely to complain if they are not receiving enough money, which could be a key reason they are given more.

Pocket money 'gender pay gap' soars to 13%

03 June

A sizeable "gender pay gap" in children's pocket money has emerged over the past year, according to the Halifax's annual pocket money survey.

The study, which involved more than 1,200 children and 575 parents, shows that boys are being given an average of £6.93 per week – almost 13 per cent more than the £6.16 typically given to girls. Last year, there was also a gender gap in favour of boys of two per cent.

The overall average given by parents was £6.55 per week, the highest since before the financial crisis in 2007. But Giles Martin, the head of Halifax Savings, told the BBC it will "be a few more years until we reach the dizzy heights of £8.37 in 2005", an all-time high since the survey began in 1987.

Amounts paid across the country range from a high of £8.55 a week in London to a low of £4.96 in East Anglia.

The survey notes that boys are more likely to complain than girls that they are not receiving enough money. "This year, 44 per cent of boys said they thought their parents should give them a rise, compared to 39 per cent of girls," notes the Financial Times.

Lindsay Cook, the co-founder of the consumer website Money Fight Club, says this reflects one of the issues "in the modern workplace", where the Office for National Statistics currently estimates that there is a pay gap of 9.4 per cent.

"I suspect there is an element of, 'If you don't ask, you don't get' as some little girls are probably too nice to ask for more," she said.

Psychologist Claudia Hammond, the author of Mind over Money, said: "It's interesting that in the survey, the boys think they deserve more money as well.

"Also, what is going on with the parents here?" she continued. "It's unlikely you've got twins where there's a boy and a girl and the parents have decided to pay them different amounts.

"These are all averages and so it does mean that people without maybe having kids of both genders [are] deciding perhaps that the boys need more."