Trillions of Dollars Are About to Flow Into the Hands of (Mostly) Women. It’s As Big a Deal As It Sounds.
Women are set to be the primary inheritors of around $80 trillion—an enormous wealth transfer which has the potential to change our economic and social landscape.
The world of money—the universe of wealth and trading and investments, but also, by extension, power and influence—is about to change dramatically.
Sometime over the next one or two decades, we’ll witness the greatest transfer of wealth that history has ever seen—a changing of hands, by some estimates, of more than $80 trillion. And the majority will flow directly to women.
Got all that? Great. Now let’s slow it down a little.
Over the next few years, as members of the Silent Generation and the Baby Boomer generation pass on, they’ll leave trillions of dollars worth of cash and other assets to their beneficiaries: members of Generation X, Millennials, and Gen Z. Perhaps most notably, though, because women globally are outliving men, this will be a gendered transfer, and for all of us—regardless of gender—the benefits could be prodigious.
This may well turn out to be one of the most effective catalysts in our lifetime spurring greater financial equality between genders. That’s because women and men make different decisions when it comes to investing and spending. Women give more generously to philanthropic causes than men, for example, and they’re more likely to fund initiatives for common social good. Women are also more likely to fund women-owned businesses. These, in turn, are more likely to hire and promote more women. Could that lead to a shrinking of the gender pay gap? It’s certainly possible.
