Gender pay gap starts with kids pocket money

Louise Burke is a freelance journalist covering family finance and motherhood, whose work has appeared in Stylist, Grazia, The Telegraph and The Mirror

Spoiler: the gender pay gap starts with your kid’s pocket money header image

The Gender Pay Gap is probably one of modern life’s greatest (not to mention galling) conundrums. Now, new research from Starling Bank and Loughborough University suggests that the pay gap starts as far back as our childhood.

Following on from Starling’s Make Money Equal campaign, which set out to equalise how men and women are spoken to and portrayed with money, this new study of more than 4,000 parents in the UK analysed their approach to kids pocket money and how it affects their children.

The findings are staggering – the pay disparity can be traced back to childhood where there’s a gargantuan-sized gender gap when it comes to pocket money. Boys receive a huge 20% more pocket money than girls at an average of £3.00 versus £2.50 a week. Unfortunately, the inequality doesn’t stop there.

The research analysed how some of the biggest online giants and established toy stores (for example Google Ad Words, Very and The Entertainer) market products to children based on their gender. Similar to the ‘pink tax’ (where products marketed to adult women cost more than those for men), the study revealed that girls’ toys cost 5.48% more than those sold to boys on average. It means that boys can buy more toys than girls and can save up for them at a faster rate.

It turns out my moans about the expense of my girls’ birthdays compared to my friends that have boys are justified after all (a quarter of those surveyed by Starling also back me up on this). After analysing 450 products, it was found that pink-ified toys cost an average of 5.16% more (£9.98) than toys that were marketed as gender neutral (£9.49).

So it’s no wonder that we’re still wrestling with a Gender Pay Gap, when our kid’s early stages of financial education begins with unfair pocket money payments and an extra pink tax on top.

That’s why Starling has launched its Make Pocket Money Equal campaign, to create change and give our kids an equal start.

it’s no wonder that we’re still wrestling with a Gender Pay Gap, when our kid’s early stages of financial education begins with unfair pocket money payments and an extra pink tax on top

Evidence shows that financial literacy can develop from the age of three. Shocked by this? Then you’re not alone – seven out of ten parents believe their kids (aged 6-11) are too young to learn about money.

The question is, why have we developed such a secretive behaviour around money? And more specifically, why have we not modernised our attitude towards pocket money? Sure, we don’t want to give children a debrief on fluctuating interest rates, but we can share the rough workings-out of the supermarket bill, or why – and how – we’re saving money for our next family day out.

I was mortified when I carried out some ‘market research’ on a micro-level at home and asked my seven year old daughter how she would like to earn her pocket money. Her answer: chores. This is frighteningly in line with the research, which revealed that the majority of us are still conforming to traditional gender stereotypes by giving girls a ‘pocket money chores list’ or rewarding good behaviour. Boys, on the other hand, are rewarded for actions that can set them further ahead in their careers, such as earning good academic grades, or simply asking for more money.

Equality is much needed on every level – it’s not just about how much pocket money we’re giving, but what we’re paying for and how. Girls are currently at a disadvantage from the start, earning less pocket money, playing to gender stereotypes to earn it and then having their purchasing power thwarted at the checkout.

Equality is much needed on every level – it’s not just about how much pocket money we’re giving, but what we’re paying for and how.

There’s no good to come out of the current Play Gap. I shudder to think what this is doing on a deeper level to our daughters’ sense of confidence as they grow up, and how that will later affect their career paths and pay (and a boy’s potentially inflated sense of entitlement for that matter).

My three daughters were as outraged as me by the ‘pink tax’. I felt relieved – and smug – that it didn’t take much for me to persuade them to look beyond the glittery unicorn section of the shopping aisle for a new Lego set. Especially as they felt they were getting a bargain in the ‘toys for boys’ display (and they probably were).

Trouble is, now they’re asking for a pocket money pay rise, which of course I’ve agreed to. As long as they get full marks in their spelling test or wash the grubby car.

We’re on a mission to Make Pocket Money Equal. Find out more.