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Women still 'much poorer' than partners

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Women still 'much poorer' than partners
Photo: DPA

Women have considerably less in personal assets and savings than their live-in male partners, new statistics showed on Sunday, suggesting that even married women are more likely than their spouses to end up living in poverty in later life.

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On average women have €33,000 less than their male other halves, according to unpublished figures seen by Welt am Sonntag.

The study, conducted by the Berlin-based German Institute for Economic Research (DIW) showed that in 52 percent of heterosexual couples, it was still men who held the purse strings and presided over a larger personal fortune than their lady-folk.

Just 19 percent of couples had an equal amount of money saved up, whereas in 29 percent of cases women had bigger stashes of cash.

And where men were better-off than their female partners, they were much better-off. In such cases, men not only had on average €91,000 more than their partners, but these couples were better off overall, with combined assets worth €245,000.

But where the woman was the richer half of a pair, she typically had just €48,000 more than her partner and the couple had less money altogether, with average combined assets of €156,000.

With divorce rates also rising, the figures suggested women were at a greater risk of falling victim to poverty in old age, wrote the Welt am Sonntag.

"Women in partnerships should place more value on their individual provisions for their old age," DIW statistician Markus Grabka told the paper.

The figures come from a DIW survey conducted in 2007, in which 7,200 German couples were asked about their incomes and personal assets.

DAPD/The Local/jlb

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