Financial Literacy and Gender Difference in Loan Defaults

Abstract

We use data from a major peer-to-peer lending marketplace in China to study whether female and male investors evaluate loan performance differently. Controlling for variables of investor demographics, investor experience, and loan characteristics, we find that loans invested by female investors are more likely to default and have lower loan return in the future than loans invested by male investors. We define abnormal default or abnormal loan return as the part of the loan default or the part of loan return that is not explained by loan characteristics and find that the loans invested by female investors have higher abnormal default and lower abnormal loan return than the loans invested by male investors. Furthermore, female investors perform similarly to male investors in abnormal default or abnormal loan return when investors have high levels of education or income or when investors work in finance or information technology industries.