We are in 21 th century and the world has changed lot ! In our country , Everything around us has got upgraded to its new versions ,Our Homes , Clothes , Foods , Celebrations , Travelling .. everything from needs to wants got revamped , But still one crucial part in our life is still far beyond the expected levels , I am talking about the subject Finance which appears boring to most of us ! even to me . But friends one thing we must not forget , Since our birth Till we die we do lot of things and for most of them we need money to pay . iTS TRUE , being human we have lot of shades of life to live on but money is also important part of it . Whenever any parent send his child to school ,They want kids to learn well so that they can get better jobs , earn good and enough . Even if it is so , how many of us actually able to get the Right jobs offering our desired income ? may be limited ones , Most of us have to try hard and take efforts to get our desired incomes .
In case of woman's situation is more difficult . So far
investment activities have long been considered the domain of men, with a majority of the women depending on either their parents or husbands to manage finances. Although the no of woman's contributing to families finance has grown considerably . women face specific challenges when it comes to financial planning, this needs to get addressed so that woman's can lead financial life without stress .
As per the report of World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Report, 2021 , women’s estimated earned income in India is only one-fifth of men’s, which puts the country among the bottom 10 globally on this indicator . It shows that while the woman's income is very low their life span tends to be higher than men . As per the Economic Survey 2021-22 tabled in Parliament, females are expected to live longer (70.7 years) than males (68.2 years). it indicates that woman needs to have enough funds to have financial security during their longer span of the life .
Career breaks in woman's life - impacts their earning stability to large extent . Because of the marriage, pregnancy , parents and family responsibilities can force woman's to stop working . Spending less time in the workforce can have far-reaching financial implication, and in some cases prevent their participation in company-sponsored retirement plans or disrupt their smooth career trajectory and thereby affect any pay increases that come with it. While women need to participate in family goals like buying a house, children’s education, etc., it is equally important for them to identify women-specific goals like the corpus required for an emergency fund to tide over their maternity and career breaks or even a job loss, and start a separate retirement fund taking into account their longevity and additional healthcare expenses, etc .
The studies from Fidelity Investments (2021 Women and Investing Study), women are more conservative about their investments. Most of the times they prefer to invest in less volatile assets and avoid stocks , mutual funds .To help overcome this challenge, women should identify their risk profile and look to diversify their investments among equity, fixed-income, and gold. if required, they can also seek financial advice from professional investment advisors to design their portfolios to align with their risk profile and goals .
On this front ideally they should have approach right person to get the desired results .Financial literacy
India is home to almost 20% of the world’s population with a literacy rate of nearly 80%. Unfortunately, only 27% of its people are financially literate, according to Annual Report 2020-21 of the National Centre for Financial Education. This number is around 21% for women. This shows the urgent need to the Indian's woman's to take charge of their own financial well being more seriously than ever . Towards this end, they can also take courses and learn from the experts , Advisors to take the correct route . Many of the woman's do have the intention to become financially independent but as part of indian traditional values they step back . Its not that they will be competing with their male partners instead they can offer a helping hand in building better financial future for both of them , and family .
Friends what ever thing we seems to be easy is the most hard to do ! and same applies to finance . As now you have vast options available to invest in finance but the important part is to Choose the one which you really need . Many times it is seen that people get in to wrong products or services as they haven't decided about it on their own . They have not clearly projected their financial future . For some mal practitioner's such people are soft targets .
we will cover about how woman's can become financially free in coming articles