mpowering Women Through Financial Literacy
Financial Literacy is equally important for men as well as for women. But studies show that women have lower financial literacy level than men in both developed and developing countries.
So today we will talk about women’s involvement in Personal Finance.
In India , women have always held a paradoxical position. Although in the modern society women have slowly start recognizing their true potential and are conquering in every field whether it is politics, sports, entertainment, literature, technology etc yet there are certain areas where women are still lagging behind the men. One such area is Personal Finance Matter.
Women never treat Personal Finance as something important to them. Though from ages , women have inherently been better money manager on a small scale as far as their household expenses and savings are concerned yet many women including working women seem to be comfortable in leaving their personal financial matters to their father or husband.
The biggest question is Why Women Treat Their Earning as Secondary Earning in Our Society?
Reasons are:
- Man has been the primary bread winner of the family. He is responsible for earning and managing money and taking care of financial goals of family. On the other hand women are responsible for taking care of household activities, raising children and maintaining relationships.
- From centuries women’s financial decision were taken care of , By their father, then their husband and then their sons. They were never got involved and encouraged to do so.
Actually for women stepping out of house and earning money was good enough to boost their morale. They had got the liberty to do something different from their regular work schedules. That’s why they had never given importance to their Personal Finance.
There are studies that revealed that Indian women give priority to family and children’s requirement more than her requirements for financial needs and financial security. Women are good savers but never a good investors like men ( even men are not for that matter).
But today, scenerio is changing very fast ,now a days women are independent, work culture had changed, we are living in nuclear family .Women have to understand that it is very important to know about personal finance not for anyone else but for themselves.
Why it can be trouble for women to not know about Personal Finance ? Main reasons which can pull the attention towards this are :
1. Sudden Responsibility:
Life is uncertain but we always took it for granted and live in a belief that it will not happen with us. But sadly when things go wrong eg if they loss their husband because of accident or some other reason: apart from emotional pain, their comes bigger pain in life i.e taking care of children and overall finance.
Lot many women never learn about Banking, Insurance, Investment, how to mange money matter well and other related topics throughout their lives and suddenly at that very moment she find herself in very tough situation and has no idea on how to invest money for making sure their child education, her retirement, her insurance etc. Leave about herself if she didn’t have any idea about Personal finance ,she would be clueless about where and what her husband had invested and how to claim that .
So Ladies please learn about money , even if you don’t like it, learn a bit atleast upto a level, where you can take charge of things and no one is able to take advantage of your situation.
2.Women Are More at Risk for Disease and Poor Health
A woman’s body is different from a man’s, and because of the basic inequalities between men and women, women face a greater risk of disease and poor health. A woman faces health risks because of her work inside and outside of the home which make her body too tired to fight the disease. Even for many women, there is hardly any concept of having regular body checkup .This negligence led to the critical disease. And above all ,as women live a longer life so there will be more health issues. Women don’t want to trouble their family ,so having knowledge about money , insurance will really helpful.
3. Women live longer than men :
Studies show that on an average, women live 4-5 years longer than their husband and over three – quarter of all women are widowed at an average age of 56 .Women need a better retirement planning as what it seems not important today will be very important tomorrow. Hence it is essential that women should develop an in depth understanding about the concept of financial planning and investment avenues to protect her from the financial challenges she may face in future.
4. Increase in No Of Divorce:
Unfortunately , but this is the truth that divorce rates are on rise in cities from last decade. Women these days are independent and have a say in every decision. Because of this they have more flexibility to move out of marriage, if things don’t work out. We are not debating about divorce that it is right or wrong, we are just sharing a perspective where, when women who get divorce have to look after her and take charge of her finances . So learning about money is very important.
So if a women can be an engineer, doctor, house manager then they can definitely understand and learn anything they set their mind to. Women will be empowered only with the weapon of Financial Literacy. It only require their willingness to learn and the time they take out in order to learn things. Ladies , Keep learning, Keep growing.
