Boys get twice as much pocket money as girls, study suggests

Parents are giving their sons twice as much pocket money as their daughters, a study suggests.

Indicating that the gender pay gap may start at home, boys in the US were found to be receiving an average $13.80 (£10.43) a week.

Girls need to wait more than a fortnight to get as much, as they typically receive just $6.71 (£5.07) a week.

There was also inequality when it came to "bonuses" given to children. While the typical boy is rewarded with $17.01 (£12.86), girls are only given $15.52 (£11.73).

Millions of transactions conducted by 10,000 families were analysed by BusyKid, an online allowance platform.

The company's chief executive, Gregg Murset, said: "It was shocking to see how much of a pay gap there was on our platform.

"I don't think this is intentional, but it's happening."

Mr Murset - a father of six - founded BusyKid to keep track of his children's chores and weekly allowance.

It teaches children how to earn, save, share, spend and invest their allowance and promotes work ethic and responsibility.

Every chore on the platform has a suggested pay rate - ranging from $1 (76p) for completing homework to $2 (£1.51) for folding and putting away laundry. These suggested rates are not specific to boys or girls, with BusyKid describing its approach as "gender agnostic".

Mr Murset told CBS News: "Parents can decide which chores to assign to which kids, and they can change our suggested rate of pay, if they want to. That's where the gender gap is coming in."

The extent of the pay gap between male and female employees at some of the UK's biggest companies was put under the spotlight earlier this year.

Organisations with 250 or more workers published their figures in April, which revealed that nearly half paid men at least one tenth more per hour.