Female millionaires on the rise

By Jennifer Hill

LONDON (Reuters) - Wealth used to be a man's world, but the gap between the sexes when it comes to money is narrowing rapidly in Britain, a report shows.

The number of female millionaires in Britain has been rising on the back of social trends -- such as inheritance and the rapidly climbing divorce rate -- 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 percent over the past eight years, the worth of a female millionaire has ballooned by 53.9 percent, Datamonitor found.

In 1998, the average male millionaire was worth 2.71 million pounds, while the female equivalent owned just 1.28 million pounds.

However, by 2006 the gap had narrowed to 2.96 million pounds for male millionaires and 1.97 million for women.

Currently, women make up around 46 percent of Britain's 376,000 millionaires -- and their number is growing by almost 11 percent a year.

Some 3,800 women own liquid assets of more than 5 million pounds, Datamonitor said.