Decomposing the Gender Wealth Gap in Late Working Age: A Novel Life Course Analysis of Family and Work Characteristics in Western Germany

Women consistently hold less wealth than men, and the life course drivers of this gap remain insufficiently understood. Prior decomposition studies have focused on employment duration or cross-sectional indicators, neglecting the timing, sequencing, and complexity of both work and family life courses, and assumed common support across gender. Using German Socio-Economic Panel data, we study West Germans aged 50–59 with an innovative two-step approach addressing these shortcomings. First, life-course feature selection identifies key wealth predictors, such as education and unemployment experiences, but also family life-course characteristics and homemaking. Second, we apply the Ñopo decomposition to quantify their contribution to the gender wealth gap. Results show that family-related factors, including homemaking, and the sequencing and timing of life-course transitions decisively shape women’s lower wealth. Gender-exclusive experiences, for which there is no counterfactual, account for much of the gap, underscoring how entrenched life-course inequalities translate into lasting economic disadvantage for women.