World's youngest billionnaire Divorce, inheritance and business nous has helped a growing number of women to become millionaires, who have increased at five times the rate of wealthy men. Wealth used to be a man's world, but the gap between the sexes is narrowing when it comes to money, a new report shows. In Britain, the number of female millionaires has been rising on the back of social trends - such as inheritance and the rapidly climbing divorce rate - and they now make up nearly half of all millionaires in the UK, 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 per cent over the past eight years, the worth of a female millionaire has ballooned by 53.9 per cent, Datamonitor found. The British study showed that in 1998, the average male millionaire was worth ￡2.71 million (AUS$6.51m), while the female equivalent owned just ￡1.28m. But by 2006, the gap had narrowed to ￡2.96m for male millionaires and ￡1.97m for women. Women make up about 46 per cent of Britain's 376,000 millionaires - and their number is growing by almost 11 per cent a year. Some 3800 British women owned liquid assets of more than￡5m, Datamonitor said. The number of women of "high net worth" status (classified as those with onshore liquid assets of more than ￡200,000) overtook men in 2005 - with 448,100 rich women compared to 429,300 men. Nine of the world's fifty richest people are women. The richest self-made woman in the world is Rosalia Mera (61) of Spain, who is worth approximately $2.4 billion. She started off making gowns and lingerie in her home. Her business eventually grew into the apparel manufacturer Inditex, which sold $6 billion worth of clothes last year. (Daily Telegraph)

離婚、遺產繼承和商業頭腦使得越來越多的女性成為百萬富翁，其增長速度為有錢男性的五倍。 財富曾被認為是男性的“專利”，但據一項最新報告顯示，如今男女財富的差距越來越小。 據獨立市場分析機構“數據監查”介紹，隨著遺產繼承、不斷攀升的離婚率等各種社會潮流的出現，英國女百萬富翁的數量持續上升，占英國百萬富翁總數將近一半。 另外，憑借自身實力的新一代女性已開始成長起來，女企業家的數量越來越多。 “數據監查”機構發現，在過去八年中，男百萬富翁的財富平均增長了9.2%，而女百萬富翁的財富則激增了53.9%。 該項英國調查顯示，1998年男百萬富翁的財富平均為271萬英鎊，而女富翁的這一數字僅為128萬。 但到2006年，這一差距縮小為：男富翁，平均296萬英鎊；女富翁，197萬英鎊。 在英國37萬6千位百萬富翁中，女性約占46%，而且這一數字正在以每年近11%的速度增長。 “數據監查”機構介紹，英國約3800名女性擁有的流動資產超過500萬英鎊。 2005年，擁有“高凈值”（國內流動資產超過20萬英鎊）身份的女性數量達到44萬8千1百，超過男性的42萬9千3百人。 世界五十大富翁中有九位是女性。 全球最富有的自主創業的女性是西班牙的羅莎麗亞·梅拉，她的總資產接近24億美元。 羅莎麗亞靠制造睡衣和內衣起家。她的業務最終發展成為服裝品牌Inditex，這一品牌去年的銷售額達60億美元。 （英語點津姍姍編輯）