Want to be a wealthy couple?

Researchers who carried out the study found that couples where both spouses answered three numeracy-related questions correctly,had an average family wealth of USD 1.7 million,while the average household wealth was USD 200,000 among the couples where neither spouse answered any questions correctly.

Numeracy is the ability to reason with numbers and other mathematical concepts,and are skills typically learned during school.

“We examined several cognitive skills and found that a simple test that checks a person’s numeracy skills was a good predictor of who would be a better family financial decision maker,” said James P Smith,co-author of the study and Distinguished Chair in Labour Markets and Demographic Studies at the RAND Corporation.

The other two authors of the study are John McArdle of the University of Southern California and Robert Willis of the University of Michigan.

According to the researchers,who reported their findings in the Economic Journal,choosing the wrong person as a family’s primary financial decision maker can have consequences.

While families choose the less-numerate spouse less than 20 per cent of the time,when this does happen total household wealth is lower,they found.

For their study,the researchers relied on a sample of married couples from the Health and Retirement Survey – a nationally representative survey of Americans at least 50 years old — which includes high-quality measurement of family wealth and tests of cognitive ability of both husbands and wives.

The skills needed to make successful investment choices are among the most cognitively demanding that a family has to make,especially as they get older and assume greater control of decisions about their wealth,pensions and health care,said the researchers.

The new study is one of the first to examine who makes these financial decisions for a household,how that selection is influenced by couple’s personal attributes and the relative cognitive abilities of both wives and husbands.

In addition to studying numeracy skills,the study also examined the impact that other cognitive skills,including memory retrieval and intact mental status,may have on financial outcomes.

The researchers found the other cognitive functions studied had far less influence on a household’s wealth.

The study also found that with the numeracy score of each spouse rising,the per cent of a family’s portfolio held in stocks also increased.

It was also discovered that a man was the financial decision maker in 62 per cent of the American households studied. This male preference was particularly pronounced when the husband was older and more educated than his wife.

However,this male bias in choosing the financial decision maker has been declining over time,they said.