Financial Literacy: Women Represent Key Constituency

The focus on financial education for all population segments has never been so great, with corporations, NGOs, academia, foundations and governments all focused on the most effective ways in which to raise the low levels of financial literacy currently reported in many developed and developing nations.

Increasingly, however, many believe that women represent among the most important cohorts needed to become more empowered with respect to their personal financial affairs.  One reason that many financial education proponents cite is the risk that women face with respect to retirement as it relates to longevity for women.  Specifically, there are millions more women than men who live beyond age 65 and, therefore, women often are faced with the outcomes of retirement-related financial decisions.

Many other contributing factors result in women increasingly reporting that they fear living longer when it comes to their financial situations.  Some of those factors include the following: (i) since they often live longer than their male counterparts, they are faced with making financial decisions alone during their retirement years; (ii) women often earn less money during their working years; (iii) women disproportionately spend more time away from work as a result of childcare responsibilities; and (iv) more women than men work in part-time positions, rather than full-time employment.  All of these factors result in higher levels of fear reported by women when it comes to managing their personal financial affairs.

Notwithstanding the commentary above, the good news is that more and more financial literacy programs and initiatives are being developed and launched to focus on providing financial education to women.  Moreover, in related disciplines, such as financial inclusion and traditional banking services, there is a fast-growing focus in connecting the availability of banking products with education for women to better understand how to access and use those solutions.  As this increased emphasis on financial literacy for women continues to take shape, financial education enthusiasts contend that it will have among the greatest impacts on the financial literacy movement in the months and years ahead.