Gender and Choice of Pension Product

We use individual-investor data from Denmark to study whether women prefer pension schemes with lower financial risk due to a guaranteed return over those offering more uncertain market-based return. Guaranteed-return schemes provide less risky but also lower expected returns. We study both the extensive (whether women have lower tendency to invest in market-based schemes) and the intensive margin (how much more women invest in schemes with guaranteed return). We find women less likely to invest in riskier pension schemes, and those women who do, invest lower amounts compared to men. This contributes to inequality between men and women during retirement.