Page 101 - IJPS-11-2

International Journal of

Population Studies

RESEARCH ARTICLE
Do female-headed households have poorer

financial health compared to male-headed
households? Evidence from China

Yingying Zhang * , Kenan Li 2 , and Jin Huang 1,3
1
1 School of Social Work, Saint Louis University, St. Louis, Missouri, United States of America
2 Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, College of Public Health and Social Justice, Saint Louis
University, St. Louis, Missouri, United States of America
3 Center for Social Development, Washington University in St. Louis, St. Louis, Missouri,
United States of America

Abstract

The global trend of financialization has introduced significant risks and uncertainties,
exacerbated by the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has affected the
*Corresponding author: economic and financial conditions of various groups. While existing research
Yingying Zhan
(yingying.zhang@slu.edu) indicates that women generally exhibit lower levels of financial literacy and tend
to have less access to financial resources compared to men, empirical research on
Citation: Zhang, Y., Li, K., & Huang, gender disparity in financial health is still limited. This study aims to bridge this gap
J. (2025). Do female-headed
households have poorer financial by analyzing gender differences in household financial health, using nationally
health compared to male-headed representative household data from China and propensity score matching analyses.
households? Evidence from China. Contrary to prevalent beliefs, the findings reveal better financial health among female-
International Journal of Population
Studies, 11(2): 95-108. headed households. For example, using the nearest neighbor matching, we found
https://doi.org/10.36922/ijps.4403 that female-headed households have a better balance of income and expenditure
Received: August 1, 2024 than male-headed households (β = 0.173, p < 0.001). Moreover, female-headed
households are more likely to possess commercial insurance (β = 0.433, p < 0.001) and
1st revised: August 7, 2024 investment products than male-headed households (β = 0.082, p < 0.05). In addition,
2nd revised: September 12, 2024 considering that women manage the day-to-day household consumption and are
3rd revised: September 19, 2024 financial outperforming men, the implementation of household finance-related
policies and programs, such as asset-building policies and Children’s Development
4th revised: October 15, 2024 Accounts, would be more effective if targeted toward women in households.
Accepted: October 17, 2024
Published online: November 4, Keywords: China; Financial health; Gender differences; Household finance; Propensity
2024
score matching
Copyright: © 2024 Author(s).
This is an Open-Access article
distributed under the terms of the
Creative Commons Attribution
License, permitting distribution, 1. Introduction
and reproduction in any medium,
provided the original work is The global trend of financialization has introduced significant risks and uncertainties,
properly cited. exacerbated by the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has affected the
Publisher’s Note: AccScience economic and financial conditions of various groups (International Monetary Fund,
Publishing remains neutral with 2021; Zhao et al., 2023). This scenario underscores the criticality of financial health,
regard to jurisdictional claims in
published maps and institutional which is defined as a state of being wherein a person can fully meet current and ongoing
affiliations. financial obligations, can feel secure in their financial future, and is able to make choices

Volume 11 Issue 2 (2025) 95 https://doi.org/10.36922/ijps.4403