The Pentera Blog
Women Still Face Earning Ceiling, but That Doesn’t Stop Their Philanthropy
New research came out recently showing that when it comes to making money in the United States, women are still trying to break through "a spectacular glass ceiling": there are far fewer wealthy women, especially at the very top of the income ladder. And that makes women's impact on planned giving seem even more impressive because other research shows that women lead the way by making far more estate gifts to charity.
The new research, released late last year by two professors at Berkeley and one at the Paris School of Economics, found that women are reducing the gender gap in earnings. But the improvement is progressively less among the wealthy and ultra-wealthy:
| Income Group | % Women | Average Income |
| Top 10% | 27% | $304,000 |
| Top 1% | 16% | $1.3 million |
| Top 0.1% | 11% | $6 million |
"The proportion of women in top groups falls steeply with income," the study authors wrote, adding that the percentage of women at the very top "has only modestly increased since 1999. The glass ceiling is not yet close to being shattered."
Yet other research by Russell James of Texas Tech University shows that women make 63% of all charitable bequests that are actually received from wills and trusts—and the vast majority of those bequests are from unmarried females. So there are fewer women among the top income groups but more charitable bequests from women.
The new research on income inequalities can be found here. The Russell James study can be found here.
