At The Times Of India Right to Excellence Financial Literacy Summit, an all women panel discussion on closing the gender gap threw up interesting insights on the challenges faced in improving financial literacy for women, how the stereotypes can be shed and the emerging trends.
The panel discussion on “Empowering Women in Finance: Closing the Gender Gap,” saw the participation of Amrita Sirohia, Co-founder of INDmoney, Mitali Nikore, Feminist economist and Founder, Nikore Associates,Anushka Rathod, Finance Influencer, Shreyaa Kapoor, Finance Influencer and Sanchita Mukherjee, Co-Founder & Partner Blue Edge & Managing Partner, Talk The Walk.
Financial literacy for women: Challenges and trends
Amrita Sirohia, Co-founder of INDmoney quoted a recent survey to note that 60% women still depend on their spouses to do the investments, while 85% of them manage household finances. Amrita attributes this to lack of education and confidence. “More and more women are getting out there taking those decisions. Yeah, but we do have a long way to go,” she said.
Shreyaa Kapoor, Finance Influencer said, “I’ve seen that in a lot of cases, women are taking that initiative to go ahead invest their own money, while making mistakes. Women don’t have the confidence to make mistakes. In a study it has been said women on an average get better returns in the stock market than men because they just are not adrenaline junkies compared to men. So they stick to long term investing more often than not.”
According to Shreya, it’s a question of mindset, more often than not. She believes that women tend to question themselves more. “But, slowly, I have seen that the trend is changing,” she said.
Sanchita Mukherjee, Co-Founder & Partner Blue Edge & Managing
Partner, Talk The Walk believes that a lot of traditional roles are blurring. “Man and women gender gap is decreasing. Children are actually being encouraged to talk about money, women are being encouraged to discuss their relationship with money,” she said.
“In the mutual fund industry, we see a lot of new folios being added by women. Statistics actually show that of the working women in India, 74% of them invest, out of which 49% actually invest in the capital markets. These are startling numbers. The challenge is that if you have the capital, do you know how to go about investing? Do you have your role models in place? Do you have the basic education for it?” she said.
According to Anushka Rathod, Finance Influencer, homemakers are less likely to go out and explore investment avenues compared to working women. However, she said that 50% of her audience comprises women, who want understanding of better budgeting techniques. Yet another trend she highlighted was of women looking to save for their children.
Mitali Nikore, Feminist economist and Founder, Nikore Associates disagreed with the view that homemakers are generally not financial decision makers. She cited the case of her own mother who handles the investments of her entire family. According to Mitali, a lot of educated women drop out of the formal workforce after working for a few years, yet they continue to take crucial decisions with regard to their finances and investments.
Mitali Nikore is of the view that the issues of urban and rural India are very different. She also points out that women in smaller towns have high aspiration levels. “We should also look at financial literacy and participating in financial markets as a mechanism to bring women back into the workforce eventually,” she said.
According to Sanchita, digitization that has happened in India is the largest, biggest moving factor. She cited the example of her domestic help being aware of all government schemes pertaining to finances. She also lauded the inclusion of financial literacy in the school curriculum by CBSE as a step in the right direction. She believes that financial literacy for women should begin at the school level.