Divorce makes women rich

Divorce, inheritance and business nous has helped a growing number of women to become millionaires, who have increased at five times the rate of wealthy men.

Wealth used to be a man's world, but the gap between the sexes is narrowing when it comes to money, a new report shows.

In Britain, the number of female millionaires has been rising on the back of social trends - such as inheritance and the rapidly climbing divorce rate - and they now make up nearly half of all millionaires in the UK, according to independent market analyst Datamonitor.

On top of that, a new generation of women have started to prosper in their own right, and female entrepreneurs are increasingly growing in number.

While a male millionaire's wealth has increased by an average 9.2 per cent over the past eight years, the worth of a female millionaire has ballooned by 53.9 per cent, Datamonitor found.

The British study showed that in 1998, the average male millionaire was worth ￡2.71 million (AUS$6.51m), while the female equivalent owned just ￡1.28m.

But by 2006, the gap had narrowed to ￡2.96m for male millionaires and ￡1.97m for women.

Women make up about 46 per cent of Britain's 376,000 millionaires - and their number is growing by almost 11 per cent a year.

Some 3800 British women owned liquid assets of more than￡5m, Datamonitor said.

The number of women of "high net worth" status (classified as those with onshore liquid assets of more than ￡200,000) overtook men in 2005 - with 448,100 rich women compared to 429,300 men.

Nine of the world's fifty richest people are women.

The richest self-made woman in the world is Rosalia Mera (61) of Spain, who is worth approximately $2.4 billion.

She started off making gowns and lingerie in her home. Her business eventually grew into the apparel manufacturer Inditex, which sold $6 billion worth of clothes last year.

离婚、遗产继承和商业头脑使得越来越多的女性成为百万富翁，其增长速度为有钱男性的五倍。

财富曾被认为是男性的“专利”，但据一项最新报告显示，如今男女财富的差距越来越小。

据独立市场分析机构“数据监查”介绍，随着遗产继承、不断攀升的离婚率等各种社会潮流的出现，英国女百万富翁的数量持续上升，占英国百万富翁总数将近一半。

另外，凭借自身实力的新一代女性已开始成长起来，女企业家的数量越来越多。

“数据监查”机构发现，在过去八年中，男百万富翁的财富平均增长了9.2%，而女百万富翁的财富则激增了53.9%。

该项英国调查显示，1998年男百万富翁的财富平均为271万英镑，而女富翁的这一数字仅为128万。

但到2006年，这一差距缩小为：男富翁，平均296万英镑；女富翁，197万英镑。

在英国37万6千位百万富翁中，女性约占46%，而且这一数字正在以每年近11%的速度增长。

“数据监查”机构介绍，英国约3800名女性拥有的流动资产超过500万英镑。

2005年，拥有“高净值”（国内流动资产超过20万英镑）身份的女性数量达到44万8千1百，超过男性的42万9千3百人。

世界五十大富翁中有九位是女性。

全球最富有的自主创业的女性是西班牙的罗莎丽亚·梅拉，她的总资产接近24亿美元。

罗莎丽亚靠制造睡衣和内衣起家。她的业务最终发展成为服装品牌Inditex，这一品牌去年的销售额达60亿美元。

Vocabulary:

self-made: 自力更生的