Financial wake-up call for women of any age

Women scrimp, get educated and work hard. But here’s the truth: When it comes to securing our financial futures, we have some major catching up to do.

Nationally, women still earn only 80 cents to a man’s dollar, and as a commissioner on the San Francisco Commission on the Status of Women, I can tell you that this wage gap persists locally. That’s just plain inexcusable, and the less appreciated and perhaps more important factor is that women don’t save and invest the money they do earn at the same rate as men. And the most surprising part of this picture: The seeds for this inequality may be planted at a very young age.

Recently Charles Schwab conducted a survey that looked at the money attitudes and experiences of young Millennials (ages 21 to 25) and Generation Z (ages 16 to 20) men and women, and quite honestly, I was shocked at the results. Previous studies over the years have shown that although women may be good at pinching pennies, they dramatically trail men in both their confidence about and knowledge of saving and investing. As a result, they have amassed significantly less in their retirement accounts — which is especially dangerous because women tend to live longer than men. My hope was that the survey results would finally indicate that things had changed, that this was a problem of previous generations.

Unfortunately, this isn’t the case.

While the survey did hold some bright spots for young women, particularly in the fact that they express the desire to be financially independent, the young women were much more likely than men to have to ask their parents for money to pay for necessities. Despite being more likely than their male counterparts to take on an extra job, and to spend 30 percent less than men, they have 40 percent less in savings. And perpetuating the mistakes of previous generations, the young women in our study were half as likely as men to have an investment account. This is what concerns me most, because when women don’t invest, they lose the potential to build wealth.

Disturbingly, this inequality may have its roots at home. Other Schwab studies have found that parents tend to talk to their daughters about everyday money matters such as spending and family finances and to their sons about more sophisticated issues such as borrowing, saving and investing. And parents also tend to pay boys twice as much as girls for household chores, indicating an unconscious gender bias right under our own roofs.

Of course women have made tremendous strides. They’re outpacing men in college and advanced degrees, they comprise 47 percent of the workforce, they’re entering previously male-dominated fields and they’re getting elected to public office at unprecedented rates. The missing link? Managing their financial lives.

Here’s the good news. Each of us — parents, teachers, mentors, community leaders — has a huge opportunity to make a difference.

The work that Boys & Girls Clubs of San Francisco is doing to teach teens the basics of finance is one powerful example of how financial education can transform lives. In a similar vein, San Francisco Treasurer Jose Cisneros is striving to provide financial coaching to every San Francisco resident who needs it.

Now it is time to extend this essential education to every child in San Francisco by requiring financial education in all San Francisco schools. By training our teachers and integrating personal finance into the curriculum, we can make smart money management a part of everyday life.

Finally, parents and mentors can have influence by having open and ongoing conversations about money. Even before your daughter enters the workforce, talk to her about the wage gap and help her become confident in negotiating terms and salary. Make sure she understands the difference between investing and saving. Starting with her first job, encourage her to set aside a portion of her salary for retirement and invest that long-term money in the stock market.

And the most important message of all? Every young woman should appreciate her potential and her worth. Our daughters deserve to have the same professional opportunities and salaries as our sons, and the same financial knowhow and security. We have a tremendous opportunity to make a lasting impact on the next generation by teaching personal finance, a critical life skill.

Carrie Schwab-Pomerantz is chairwoman and president of the Charles Schwab Foundation and senior vice president of Charles Schwab & Co. Inc.