Readers may recall my assertion numerous times that Millennial females are faring better than men in terms of average income, for instance, Making Billions From Female Millennials:
Do we want to try and force something on our customers that they don't want? For female Echo Boomers, bet on fashion being in large demand (along with shopping-like experiences). Remember, female Echo Boomers have more money (on average) than their male counterparts.
However, readers may also see out-dated assertions that women still don't earn as much as men, and in a few rare cases, assertions that - quite frankly - haven't been updated since the 70s (such as the 77 cent myth).
Lo and behold, my research is far more accurate than these "gender wage gap" promoters, as a recent article on LinkedIn discussed a new trend of women becoming the major breadwinners:
The first thing you should know about the big flip — it’s big. 40% of American working wives now already out-earn their husbands (Pew Research 2012). In 40% of American families (with kids under 18), mom is the breadwinner (Pew Research 2013). In fact, the Boston Consulting Group has gone so far as to predict that in 15 years, women will not just close the income gap with men — but out-earn them.
Exactly as I've predicted: Millennial women make more money than Millennial men and we can expect that to remain. I don't agree with ol' Iz in the sense that Millennial women will have to "change" their expectations on what they want in men, as I expect a 33-40% of Millennials won't marry. But, the women of this generation are more educated and can expect to earn more, provided they don't choose to drop out of the workforce, like this past generation of women did (who then complained about their poor decision!). Also, this demonstrates why for both Millennial men and women, in a battle of cohabitation versus marriage, cohabitation wins.
So, even as Millennial women surpass Millennial men in income, and this trend continues, provided that they remain in the workforce, we still will see such wage gap myths throughout media (they hardly concerns themselves with research, truth or real data). Recognize, especially as a business, that this is a demographic with strong incomes and one you do not want to miss out because of false information prevalent in media. Only a foolish company would believe the women of this generation have low incomes, and that company will miss out on a major opportunity.
Relevant Research Point
Three really important points that cannot be missed here - and points you will almost never see in the media:
1. A never married woman who never has children has always made more money than a never married man who never has children. She also has a different set of values. As a business owner who may be targetting this demographic, don't miss this.
2. The biggest factor in male income is marriage. Even education plays far less than you would expect. An ever married man (married, divorced, widowed) makes significantly more money than everyone else. This holds even truer if he has children. I'm not going to engage in a social debate as to why, but marriage and family significantly affect male behavior, especially economic productive output.
3. Related to the second point, the married men of the ever married men category seldom make the daily financial decisions of the family. This has been noted by other sociologists and psychologists. Usually the wife makes the day-to-day purchase decisions. Likewise most of these men don't consider it "their" money even if they were the sole earner. I've seen this countless times in my research. The point here is that even with this group, you're not marketing to men solely but the family unit.
