Wealthy married women are largely being left out of long-term financial planning and are relegated to handling day-to-day expenses, according to a UBS Survey.
The report, which was based on a global survey of 3,652 women -- most of them married with $1 million or more in assets -- found that only 23 percent of the women take charge of their household's financial planning decisions.
But about 85 percent of respondents said they take charge of day-to-day expenses, according to the report released on Wednesday.
Among women in the U.S., 54 percent deferred to their spouse, 21 percent took the lead on long-term planning, and 25 percent shared those responsibilities with their spouse, the report said.
Among the nine nations and territories studied, the U.S. ranked sixth highest in terms of percentage of women who defer to their spouses on long-term planning, higher than only Mexico (39 percent), Brazil (45 percent) and Italy (52 percent). Singapore sat atop the list, with 72 percent of women in that country deferring to their spouses.
U.S. millennial women between the ages of 20 and 34 were above the national average, with about 56 percent deferring to their spouse. In fact, on a global level, women 51 years old or older were less likely (55 percent) to defer to their spouses than younger women (59 percent).
"The traditional "divide-and-conquer" approach to managing finances, where women typically take care of day-to-day expenses and men take care of long-term planning, is leaving women ill-prepared to manage key financial financial needs during critical moments in their lives," UBS said in a press release.
The survey also found that, globally, 58 percent of the respondents defer to their spouse on critical, long-term decisions. The most cited reason was "I think my spouse knows more about the topic than I do" (82 percent), followed by "We take a divide-and-conquer approach" (79 percent).
One 65-year-old U.S. woman was quoted in the study as saying, "I was good with managing my money and not spending more than I had, but I wasn't inclined to want to learn about investing. I just sort of repelled from it."
The study's authors cautioned that women often suffer the consequences of staying away from long-term planning only after they divorce or their spouse passes away.