Between merit and marriage: Gender differences in self-assessed wealth contributors

This study examines how women and men retrospectively self-assess the extent to which different factors have contributed to their current wealth. Studying gender differences in these self-assessments is crucial because they reflect the opportunity structures individuals have experienced and shape how wealth accumulation and inequalities are interpreted, legitimized, and potentially acted upon. Using data from the German Socio-Economic Panel Study (SOEP; waves 2017 and 2019, N=18,574), we first analyse gender differences in retrospective assessments of how eight different factors have contributed to individuals’ current wealth and, second, how these gendered assessments vary across the wealth and age distribution. Our results show that men tend to assess higher contributions of dependent employment, self-employment/entrepreneurship, and financial business to their current wealth than women, who assess higher contributions of marriage and inheritance than men. These gender differences are particularly pronounced at the upper end of the wealth distribution and become more marked at older ages. Overall, women tend to emphasize relational and dependent contributors to their current wealth, while men emphasize self-generated and market-based pathways. Assessments of wealth contributors thus mirror persistent economic gender disparities, illustrating how the gender wealth gap may be legitimized and reproduced.