Preliminary–please do not cite without permission In the US, women tend to have lower levels of financial literacy than men. This is consistent with a household division of labor in which men manage finances. However, women also tend to outlive their husbands, so they will eventually need to take over this task. Using a new survey of older couples, I find that women acquire additional financial literacy as they approach widowhood. At an estimated increase of 0.04 standard deviations per year approaching widowhood, 80 % of women in my sample would catch up with their husbands prior to the expected onset of widowhood. I also demonstrate that these findings are due to actual increases by women and are not merely an artifact of cognitive decline among older men. These results are consistent with a model in which the household division of labor breaks down when a spouse dies. The model shows that women have an incentive both to delay acquiring financial knowledge and also to begin learning before widowhood. This paper represents the first empirical examination of the financial literacy of both membersofcouplesandprovidesalife-cycleinterpretationofthegendergapinfinancial literacy. This paper employs data that is generously supported by NIA grant P01 AG026571. Many thanks to

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thank Iva MacLennan for excellent programming assistance. This research was supported by a grant from the National Institute of Aging to the Rand Corporation, to the University of Southern California (AG#07137) and to the University of Michigan (AG026571) Dimensions of cognitive skills are potentially important and often neglected determinants of the central economic outcomes that shape overall well-being over the life course. There exists enormous variation among households in their rates of wealth accumulation, their holdings of financial assets, and the relative risk indicated in their asset portfolios that have proven difficult to explain by conventional demographic factors and the level of economic resources of the household. (Smith, 1995). The premium on cognitive skills may be increasing as individuals are asked to take greater control of their wealth, pension, and health care decisions which may in many instances be cognitively demanding. The mechanisms responsible for cognitive development over the life course that are related to economic outcomes may be the long term result of many factors. It is well-known that children exposed to serious environmental deprivation show markedly reduced cognitive abilities (Rutter 1985), but the detectable effects of normal-range environments on cognitive ability are typically small. This is not surprising, given the large number of environmental risk factors and the small effect expected for any particular factor, and that the genetic contributions may vary as well (Harden et al, 2007). Specific factors associated with lower cognitive performance include low socioeconomic status, birth complications, poor early nutrition, family conflict, and many others