“To awaken the people, it is the woman who must be awakened. Once she is on the move, the family moves, the village moves and the nation moves” - Jawaharlal Nehru
You cannot be independent without being financially independent. Think about it. To live a life truly on your own terms, you need to have complete autonomy of your money. Earning it, saving it, investing it, protecting it, and spending it.
Historically, men have been the owners of wealth, and by extension, the financial decision-makers. However, gender roles are becoming outdated, including roles related to money.
Budgeting for the month for the entire family, managing everyone’s schedules and ensuring things are in order in the house. These responsibilities come naturally to a woman. But what happens when you take the same skill set and use it in scenarios that help generate economic output?
Women and Leadership
Women, today, are constantly playing crucial roles in leadership positions. However, one such sector that is largely male-dominated is venture capital firms. In a study by Mckinsey & Co, venture capital firms that increased their proportion of female partner hires by 10% saw approximately a 1.5% spike in overall fund returns each year and had 9.7% more profitable exits, according to the research.
A similar study by L'Oréal also found that their profits also increased by 15% when they hired 30% more women in leadership positions. This was later turned into a campaign that caught worldwide attention too!
So basically what I am trying to say here is that women, when given a chance to prove their abilities, often make decisions that are lucrative for businesses. This in turn not just empowers society on the whole, but also is a social leveller in many ways.
This holds true to even women’s representation in government administration. Many women who have held coveted public service positions have been able to make positive changes in society. For example: Aruna Sundararajan, an IAS officer who played a key role in setting up Kerala’s IT department, who is also described by Forbes Magazine as "IAS officer who thinks like a businesswoman", or Durga Shakti Nagpal, who is famous for fighting corruption and exposing multiple irregularities in society. It is said that for every 3 women who get into the Civil Services, 20 men are selected. So, still, a long way to go?
Women and Money
The fact that women want to increasingly become financially independent is largely true in modern-day India. Perceived to be a taboo topic, money has started finding its way into conversations amongst women. What’s important to note here is that women want to discuss money and their finances, but have just not been able to, either due to the lack of safe spaces, or lack of easily accessible information.
Trying to understand the situation first hand, our team at Basis conducted a market research study into understanding financially independent women across multiple cities in India, and the findings were not surprising. 0.7% of Indian women invest in the equities market. 70% of the participants stated that they had enough financial savings to invest and 60% of the cohort admitted to wanting better ways to manage their money. While women wanted to discuss topics such as equitable wages and mental health, financial planning was voted the most interesting topic women would want to engage in.
The reality of financially independent women
In 2017, only 64 per cent of women globally had access to an account in a financial institution, compared to about 71 percent of men. In India, however, the difference between women and men having bank accounts has shrunk from 20 percent to 6 percent between 2014 and 2017. While this might seem to be a great advancement, the question to ask here is, are all these accounts “owned” by women? The answer to which is the exact determinant to what financial progress means.
Women in the Indian household, if not traditionally encouraged to understand financial independence, face new challenges through their financial journey.. Most women who are dependents find themselves in a completely alien situation at the time of the death of their male counterparts, divorce or separation and sometimes abandonment by their children.
In such an event, the woman might get access to the family wealth - movable and immovable assets - but is often taken advantage of simply because she doesn't know the value of, or how to manage these assets. So when a woman is financially independent, more often than not, she is so due to compulsion rather than a choice.
Earning an income, and not being answerable to anyone about what you do with your money - is liberating. While women do face financial inequalities such as the gender pay gap, they are taking steps to pave their paths towards financial independence. A financially independent woman is not only able to provide for herself but for her family and community as well.
