Boys get paid more pocket money

Boys get $3 more a week pocket money on average than girls.

Most Kiwi kids don’t get pocket money - but for those who do, boys get $3 more a week on average than girls and chores to earn it are based on gender.

Both spend 2.4 hours a week doing chores and girls are more likely to clean the bedroom and do the dishes and laundry while boys are more likely to take out the rubbish, mow the lawns and clean the car.

The findings were included in the Westpac Money and Kids Report, a nationwide survey commissioned to understand the money habits of children. The research surveyed 540 Westpac customers, all with children aged between 4 and 18 years old.

Angela McLeod from the Pay Equity Challenge Coalition said it was “a blight on society” that the gap in wages started so young and proved just how much attitudes needed to change, Especially because boys and girls spent the same amount of time doing chores - 2.4 hours a week - but the gap was more than $3.

“It shows just how little we value what women contribute and that needs to change ... these parents need to value the work different genders do equally. And it shows how far we’ve got to go if this is starting so young.”

The most common chore was making the bed, with 78 per cent of boys and 89 per cent of girls usually doing that to earn money. The least common chore was mowing the lawn.

Read the full report on pocket money here

Eighty-four per cent had a bank account, but 65 per cent had no weekly savings and 37 per cent of the parents surveyed said their children had a poor to below average understanding of the value of money.

However, 48 per cent of children had a good to excellent understanding.

Westpac’s general manager of business bank, private bank, wealth and insurance, Simon Power, said the report showed New Zealand children weren’t getting life lessons on understanding money, how to save it and an associated work-to-reward ethic.

“Doing chores at home for pocket money is one way a child can start to understand how to earn money, save it, value it and a lot more.”

Chief executive of the Mangere Budgeting Service, Darryl Evans, supported giving children half their age in pocket money and teaching them to divide it into thirds - some to save, some to spend and the rest to donate.

He said children who learned how to save young grew to be much more financially literate adults.