How ladies use their cash: a report card

A dismally low share of ladies makes it to formal workplaces in India. But even amongst those that do, monetary freedom is miles away. Despite making important strides, Indian ladies are removed from taking a seat on the investing desk whilst we have fun the spirit of freedom this International Women’s Day. What will transfer the needle?

Around 85% married ladies aged 15-49 are concerned in deciding tips on how to use their very own earnings, the most recent National Family Health Survey (NFHS 2019-21) confirmed. This is up from 82% in 2015-16. But a big share achieve this collectively with their husbands: simply 18% of all ladies pull the strings themselves, down from 21%.

Note that in one other survey by Tata AIA Life Insurance, 44% of ladies mentioned they have been prepared to make their very own selections “if given a selection”. But this was primarily in tier-1 cities: elsewhere, women still wanted to depend on their husbands, the insurer said, based on its survey of 1,000 women across 18 cities in October 2022. Apart from the lack of financial awareness, factors such as the social structures, lack of confidence and the prospect of being answerable for their investment choices make women more hesitant, said Renu Maheshwari, co-founder of Finscholarz Wealth Managers.

Some progress is on the way. The latest YouGov-Mint-CPR Millennial Survey showed that more women are now investing in financial or physical assets. Around 21% women said they invested in only financial assets such as stocks, bonds and mutual funds, up from 17.5% a year prior.

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Fair share?

Women are often considered more risk-averse than men, which translates into lower proclivity towards equities. Globally, women were around 24% of the stock market investors on BrokerChooser’s broking platform in 2021, and in India, the share was even lower at 21%.

But here, too, as the YouGov-Mint-CPR survey showed, improvement is on its way. “Things have already improved a lot compared to the situation 7-8 years back,” mentioned Alok Chaturvedi, head of merchandise, HDFC Securities. “The authorities’s digital initiatives have additionally performed an necessary function.”

Women made up 13.5% of the total investor base in equities as of September 2021, up from 11.7% in September 2019, a National Stock Exchange report said in 2021. While Chaturvedi sees this as an encouraging trend, he believes raising awareness and financial literacy, promoting diversity and addressing systemic barriers, among other things, can boost their participation in equities.

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Promising trends:

Women’s ownership in other traditional financial products such as mutual funds and insurance may not be up to the mark but has been progressing well.

The tribe of female mutual fund investors is only about one-fourth of the total base but has seen a threefold increase in the last five years, according to a 2022 CAMS report. Millennial women make up 30% of this base.

Women’s share in new policies bought in 2021-22 stood at 29% and 36% for private life insurers and Life Insurance Corp. of India, respectively, shows regulatory data. “Lack of awareness and discourse remains a major impediment for insurance adoption among Indian women,” mentioned Murli Jalan, chief distribution officer (proprietary), Bharti AXA Life Insurance. “All the stakeholders of the insurance coverage business should cast off the thought of portraying males as the only breadwinners and decision-makers for all of the monetary targets.”

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New-age property

Lastly, new-age asset courses reminiscent of cryptocurrencies. “Women, particularly in city India, type a major person base of wealth-tech apps, investing in rising and conventional asset courses,” said Swati Pincha, head of growth at CoinSwitch, a crypto platform. “This shows the challenge was not that women were not investing, but that platforms were not accessible.”

Trading platform eToro reported that cryptocurrencies have been the second most generally held asset class by ladies globally in 2022, simply behind money. Pincha attributed the expansion of cryptos amongst ladies to rising web penetration and the decline in knowledge inequality. Moreover, ladies in creating international locations led in crypto adoption in 2021 with two in 5 crypto homeowners in India being ladies, reported crypto platform Gemini.

All in all there does seem like gentle on the finish of the tunnel as ladies attempt to bridge the massive gaps.

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