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The symbol for male sitting on a stack of coins, beside  the symbol for female, sitting on a smaller stack of coins

Personality traits and gender differences

An extensive body of research shows a significant gap in the financial knowledge and capability between men and women. This report sheds new light on the role of gender in financial capability.

An emerging body of international literature is beginning to reveal a significant connection between financial capability metrics and personality, suggesting that what influences our financial well-being may be more nuanced than we previously thought. In 2015, the Chartered Professional Accountants of Canada (CPA Canada) conducted the first survey to investigate this issue in a Canadian context.

In the first report of our three-part research series, we investigate how the inclusion of personality traits impacts the analysis of the gender difference in financial capability scores. An extensive body of research has shown a significant difference, in which women tend to score lower across a wide range of metrics, which led researchers to believe that gender was an important determinant. Our research findings show that this is not the whole story.