Skewed labour-market outcomes, including those described in the previous sections, can have an outsized impact on female wealth accumulation when projected over the course of a working trajectory for men and women. In addition, unequal access and control over wealth-building resources - such as banking, investment, inheritance and property - can contribute to the wealth divide.

A World Economic Forum collaboration with WTW analysed wealth equity across 39 countries and found that women are at a disadvantage with regards to wealth accumulation over the span of their working life. For frontline operational roles, the overall gender wealth gap amounts to 11%; for professional and technical type roles, the gender wealth gap nearly triples, to 31%; and for senior expert and leadership roles it expands further to 38% in the countries considered by WTW. The most salient factors contributing to gender-based wealth inequity are gender pay gaps, unequal career progression trajectories, gender gaps in financial literacy, and life events that typically influence women's participation in paid work and their ability to contribute to wealth accumulation.¹²

As women are under-represented in higher paid positions, the amount they can direct towards savings and investments, and the corresponding earning-based contributions to wealth, is often lower than that of men. In addition, specific life events related to care responsibilities, part-time work and career breaks affect women disproportionately compared to men, as they lower the rate of workforce participation and/or time spent in employment - also affecting their employment-based contributions accordingly.

Life events relating to care had the most significant impact on gender wealth equity across nearly all the 39 countries included in the analysis. For example, as presented in Figure 2.11, caring for a child has a large impact on women's capacity to build wealth in Argentina, Nigeria and Mexico. These findings mirror in part the asymmetry of unpaid care work that persists in these countries. For example, in Argentina women spend 28% of their day doing unpaid care work, whereas men only dedicate 9% to it. In Mexico, men spend 11% of their day doing care work compared to women, who devote 28%.¹³ However, when considering the combined impact of all factors on gender wealth gaps, some of the most equal economies with wealth equity at 80% and above are South Korea, Spain, Austria, Japan, Taiwan (China), Norway, Israel and Denmark while the most unequal economies with less than 65% of wealth equity are Nigeria, Argentina, Mexico, Turkey and India.

Further, in the absence of adequate care infrastructure and with persisting gender differences in leave provisions, the disproportionate share of unpaid care work that women assume can add to the challenges of generating wealth. This raises an important question relating to the role that purpose-driven leadership and programs, equitable total rewards (pay, benefits, careers), good work standards,¹⁴ comprehensive social infrastructure, expanded and equitable provisions for care-related events, and accessible financial instruments can play as gender equalizing and redistributive instruments for workers in standard and non-standard employment.