ROANOKE TIMES 
                      Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times

DATE: Friday, May 10, 1996                   TAG: 9605100062
SECTION: BUSINESS                 PAGE: B-8  EDITION: METRO 
DATELINE: NEW YORK
SOURCE: Associated Press 

WHAT'S ON YOUR MIND, HONEY? (ANSWER IS PROBABLY: MONEY)

A gender gap divides the sexes over personal finances, the national economy and presidential politics, according to a Money magazine poll released Thursday.

Women worry more than men about finances, have a gloomier economic outlook and are more likely to think about money than sex, according to the poll. Results are to be published in the magazine's June issue.

Sociologists and financial planners say the gap reflects the different treatment women receive in the workplace and at home.

``Women were more downbeat than men on almost every issue relating to their own finances and to the economy,'' said Adam Richard, senior vice president of Willard & Shullman of Greenwich, Conn., the polling firm that conducted the survey for the magazine.

Money noted that the survey included a disproportionately high proportion of high-income respondents and a lower proportion of low-income earners than exists in the general population. Questionnaires were mailed to 4,500 people; about a third of them responded.

More than half of the women surveyed said they would have trouble paying an unexpected $1,000 bill, compared with one-third of men, the survey found. Sixty percent of women said they think more about money than sex, compared with 34 percent of men. And nearly a third of women said they often fret over money, compared with only 17 percent of men.

Despite the gender gap, men and women alike had a mixture of hope and fear for the economy.

Fifty-seven percent of the total respondents said the American dream is still attainable, up from 52 percent last year. But nearly six out of 10 of those surveyed said the nation's economy is in a long-term decline, a dramatic increase from the 43 percent who said so four years ago.

The mail-in survey, conducted in February and March, included responses from 1,218 household decision-makers and had a margin or error of 2.9 percentage points.

The survey drew half its responses from people with incomes at or above $40,000, compared with 14 percent in the population at large, and less than 6 percent from respondents earning less than $25,000, compared with 36 percent in the population at large.

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