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> credit scores for women skew lower than for men. Which is crazy, because for most of my guy friends (myself included), saying that their significant others/w

> credit scores for women skew lower than for men. Which is crazy, because for most of my guy friends (myself included), saying that their significant others/women make significantly better financial decisions is putting it far too lightly. I basically wasn't making decisions at all (besides savings) until my s/o set me right. This discrimination is tragic and disgusting.

DoreenMichele 7y ago
Women tend to have lower incomes and lower net worths. Here is a recent article squeeing about women finally being willing to buy homes on their own: https://realestate.usnews.com/real-estate/articles/the-rise-of-the-single-female-homeowner https://realestate.usnews.com/real-estate/articles/the-rise-... One of the statistics in it: Single women can only afford about 39% of homes. Single men can afford more than half. Historically, couples with traditional marriages (primary breadwinner husband, wife whose primary responsibilities were women's work) often did not bother to put her name on a real estate transaction or car purchase. This substantially impairs a woman's ability to establish a credit record and reduces her legal claim to assets. If you get divorced, the person with a real career and resume to match will likely continue having a good income. Someone who was a full-time wife and mom will face serious barriers to establishing a real career at all and may well remain poor for years to come. I'm quite financially savvy. Financial savvy only goes so far. Ability to pay still matters and men are more likely to have that piece covered.
- acjohnson55 7y ago
  Yeah. It wasn't that long ago the mortgage industry was rife with blatant gender discrimination, which contributed to this issue. I've learned this from the compliance training at the mortgage lender where I currently work.
  - DoreenMichele 7y ago
    I don't doubt it, but I think it's far more complicated than that. I think a great deal of potentially low hanging fruit is actively overlooked by the tendency the world has to go looking for ill intent. In cases where the explanation is something like "No, seriously, she simply cannot afford it." efforts to root out presumed bias are not only unhelpful, they are actively counterproductive. I need more income. Period. If you were to approve me for a mortgage this minute for the $550k building I desire, I simply cannot make the payments. It's not going to fix anything. First, get me the money. That's the one thing no one on this planet seems seriously willing to help me with and there is always some BS excuse.
    - acjohnson55 7y ago
      Totally agree. When I taught high school in a impoverished area, someone somewhere said that poverty is acute lack of money, period. Everything else is a symptom (or feedback cause). So we spend all this time creating convoluted strategies to address poverty, except actually giving people money. Obviously, doing so wouldn't fix all problems on Day One for all people, but I now suspect it would be a lot more efficient than a lot of our efforts, and it would make the remaining problems more tractable.
- burnte 7y ago
  > Women tend to have lower incomes and lower net worths. Very true, because they aren't as smart and they don't work as hard. No, wait, sorry, it's actually because there are stereotypes about women that aren't even remotely true that are reinforced decades after they were found to be offensive through institutional sexism such as the gender pay gap and the glass ceiling. So, maybe the lower credit scores simply reflect the deck stacked against women in the workplace.
  - DoreenMichele 7y ago
    I'm plenty frustrated with actual sexism of the sort you and others here keep insisting is the entire explanation. But, no, that's not remotely the entire story. Other factors that help suppress female income: 1. They tend to spend far more time on unpaid activities ("women's work") than men. 2. When moving to a new city, a man is very likely moving to a new job. This usually entails a pay hike. A woman is much more likely to be following her man's career to a new town. This typically involves taking a pay cut and derailing her career aspirations. 3. Men are more likely to pick a college that supports their career goals. Women are much more likely to attend whatever happens to be locally available and affordable. 4. Men who start businesses are typically making a career move. Women who start businesses are more likely to be starting a "lifestyle business" to accommodate other demands placed on their time and energy, such as special needs children. I'm sure I could go on. I've read research on the topic for literally decades to try to understand where my life went wrong, but it's ultimately pointless since I can't cite specific sources, most of the members of HN aren't familiar with such stats and, no, just taking my word for it as a SME in the sorts of things that have negatively impacted my life is simply not anything anyone here will do.
- belorn 7y ago
  > If you get divorced, the person with a real career and resume to match will likely continue having a good income Since I believe that gender roles is about splitting benefit and responsibilities, I asked myself what the outcomes of a divorce should result in in gender stereotypical situation. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5992251/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5992251/ A man who focus on the traditional gender role of breadwinner and a woman who focus on the traditional gender role of social management will results in decreased income for the woman and decreased social support for the man past divorce. This puts the woman at increased risk of poverty, while the man has an increased risk of loneliness. There is also some implied finding that women who remarry has on average a decrease in house income, while men do not gain persistent increase in loneliness. I do not think there is a major mystery why that is considering differences in inter-sex competition for men and women.
kyrieeschaton 7y ago
"Good financial decisions" are only at a very specific margin associated with credit score. If you have an underwater car loan you can't really afford comfortably that you nonetheless make the minimums on whilst eating rice and beans, you'll have great credit after a couple years. If you strategically defaulted immediately after buying your ridiculously underwater condo in 2008 and it took them 3 years to foreclose on you, you made a great financial decision and your credit is trashed for the next six years. Credit scores specifically correlate with default risk, not some abstracted measure of financial health.

DoreenMichele 7y ago

Women tend to have lower incomes and lower net worths. Here is a recent article squeeing about women finally being willing to buy homes on their own: https://realestate.usnews.com/real-estate/articles/the-rise-of-the-single-female-homeowner https://realestate.usnews.com/real-estate/articles/the-rise-... One of the statistics in it: Single women can only afford about 39% of homes. Single men can afford more than half. Historically, couples with traditional marriages (primary breadwinner husband, wife whose primary responsibilities were women's work) often did not bother to put her name on a real estate transaction or car purchase. This substantially impairs a woman's ability to establish a credit record and reduces her legal claim to assets. If you get divorced, the person with a real career and resume to match will likely continue having a good income. Someone who was a full-time wife and mom will face serious barriers to establishing a real career at all and may well remain poor for years to come. I'm quite financially savvy. Financial savvy only goes so far. Ability to pay still matters and men are more likely to have that piece covered.

acjohnson55 7y ago
Yeah. It wasn't that long ago the mortgage industry was rife with blatant gender discrimination, which contributed to this issue. I've learned this from the compliance training at the mortgage lender where I currently work.
- DoreenMichele 7y ago
  I don't doubt it, but I think it's far more complicated than that. I think a great deal of potentially low hanging fruit is actively overlooked by the tendency the world has to go looking for ill intent. In cases where the explanation is something like "No, seriously, she simply cannot afford it." efforts to root out presumed bias are not only unhelpful, they are actively counterproductive. I need more income. Period. If you were to approve me for a mortgage this minute for the $550k building I desire, I simply cannot make the payments. It's not going to fix anything. First, get me the money. That's the one thing no one on this planet seems seriously willing to help me with and there is always some BS excuse.
  - acjohnson55 7y ago
    Totally agree. When I taught high school in a impoverished area, someone somewhere said that poverty is acute lack of money, period. Everything else is a symptom (or feedback cause). So we spend all this time creating convoluted strategies to address poverty, except actually giving people money. Obviously, doing so wouldn't fix all problems on Day One for all people, but I now suspect it would be a lot more efficient than a lot of our efforts, and it would make the remaining problems more tractable.
burnte 7y ago
> Women tend to have lower incomes and lower net worths. Very true, because they aren't as smart and they don't work as hard. No, wait, sorry, it's actually because there are stereotypes about women that aren't even remotely true that are reinforced decades after they were found to be offensive through institutional sexism such as the gender pay gap and the glass ceiling. So, maybe the lower credit scores simply reflect the deck stacked against women in the workplace.
- DoreenMichele 7y ago
  I'm plenty frustrated with actual sexism of the sort you and others here keep insisting is the entire explanation. But, no, that's not remotely the entire story. Other factors that help suppress female income: 1. They tend to spend far more time on unpaid activities ("women's work") than men. 2. When moving to a new city, a man is very likely moving to a new job. This usually entails a pay hike. A woman is much more likely to be following her man's career to a new town. This typically involves taking a pay cut and derailing her career aspirations. 3. Men are more likely to pick a college that supports their career goals. Women are much more likely to attend whatever happens to be locally available and affordable. 4. Men who start businesses are typically making a career move. Women who start businesses are more likely to be starting a "lifestyle business" to accommodate other demands placed on their time and energy, such as special needs children. I'm sure I could go on. I've read research on the topic for literally decades to try to understand where my life went wrong, but it's ultimately pointless since I can't cite specific sources, most of the members of HN aren't familiar with such stats and, no, just taking my word for it as a SME in the sorts of things that have negatively impacted my life is simply not anything anyone here will do.
belorn 7y ago
> If you get divorced, the person with a real career and resume to match will likely continue having a good income Since I believe that gender roles is about splitting benefit and responsibilities, I asked myself what the outcomes of a divorce should result in in gender stereotypical situation. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5992251/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5992251/ A man who focus on the traditional gender role of breadwinner and a woman who focus on the traditional gender role of social management will results in decreased income for the woman and decreased social support for the man past divorce. This puts the woman at increased risk of poverty, while the man has an increased risk of loneliness. There is also some implied finding that women who remarry has on average a decrease in house income, while men do not gain persistent increase in loneliness. I do not think there is a major mystery why that is considering differences in inter-sex competition for men and women.

kyrieeschaton 7y ago

"Good financial decisions" are only at a very specific margin associated with credit score. If you have an underwater car loan you can't really afford comfortably that you nonetheless make the minimums on whilst eating rice and beans, you'll have great credit after a couple years. If you strategically defaulted immediately after buying your ridiculously underwater condo in 2008 and it took them 3 years to foreclose on you, you made a great financial decision and your credit is trashed for the next six years. Credit scores specifically correlate with default risk, not some abstracted measure of financial health.