Is There a Correlation Between Gender and How We Think About Net Worth?

[disneysteve]

My point was more that we don't have any separate assets.

We do have separate assets: 401k, 403b, IRA, Roth. But unless we are divorcing, there's no reason to look at things in terms of his and hers. It's all joint money to be used for joint purposes.

[Like2Plan]

My point was more that we don't have any separate assets. I suppose I just have to divide our total assets by 2, but I don't know why we would ever do that. (Besides the obvious - separation - which we are not planning for).

I forgot to mention in the above post as to why the lawyer wanted to know DH's and my estate values separately. The reason was because he wanted to make sure neither one of us exceeded the Estate Tax exemption. (I guess if that happens, he has different advice to give. )

But, even before either DH or I pass away there are other practical reasons for figuring out net worth separately. We are within 0-3 years (depending on DH) of taking distributions from our retirement savings. For me, it is a totally different mind set than the accumulation phase. I have been studying this for several years--trying to figure out from which account do we draw money for necessary expenses to make sure it doesn't end up lopsided by the time of our deaths and also to smooth out the tax obligations.

Even given all of the above I still think of it as our combined household net worth. (But, it is only something I would share with DH anyway. )

[AJ444]

With regards to sharing my personal finance information such as net worth my wife obviously knows as well as my brother as he is the executor if something happens to both of us. Otherwise I keep quiet about it.

Online I'll share if it adds to a discussion, I don't mind because I can remain anonymous.

[Fishindude77]

Married, male, and I handle all of our household's finances. When I talk about net worth, there is only one number: our total household net worth. Honestly, I don't feel that I could (in good faith) state that any particular portion of our household's net worth is "mine" vs. "hers", or as an "individual net worth".

This is pretty much my take on it also.
Get caught with a girlfriend / boyfriend if you want to really find out how much of it is "mine"

[TexasHusker]

Generally, if you are a male, the courts say:

What is hers is hers, and what is yours is half of hers.

[scfr]

I wouldn't think that at all. I don't think I've ever heard a married person talk about only their own assets in that way. If you separately asked me and my wife how much we have, we'd both give you a similar figure, not half of the actual figure.

Let's say a poll were conducted, wouldn't you think it important to distinguish whether a net worth question were about individual or household (and if so, how many adults in the household)? If that weren't done, statistics would be skewed, and people would start to believe that married-person-households were automatically twice as well off as they are and were at much more of an advantage than they really are. Which, as has been mentioned in the case of divorce, becomes apparent.