The Economic Gender Gap

Gender Equality is an essential value that societies need to recognize and cherish. We are witnessing huge changes due to economic fluctuations, digital revolutions, disrupted industries and replacement of human skills with technology. There are many areas of gender inequality, which need to be addressed for a desirable social good. It is my belief that the core need of the hour for women today is Financial Literacy which will lead to financial independence and self-empowerment of women and result in a more inclusive society.

A business case for financial inclusion of women.

Women constitute almost 50% of the world population and in India 48%. Globally, 37% of world GDP comes from women’s contribution but in India only 18% of our GDP comes from women. The potential for total women financial inclusion would unlock over USD 770 Billion in India alone. So, there is a business and economic case for financial inclusion.

A human rights case for financial inclusion of women.

Gender Equality is a fundamental principle enshrined in the United Nations charter and adopted by world leaders since 1945. Equality is a fundamental right even in the Indian constitution. Centuries of patriarchal society discriminated against women and they lost a great deal of their human rights and faced discrimination in all spheres of life. Some women have from time to time broken the stereotypes and carved a self-empowered path for themselves. However, harmful gender stereotypes need to be dismantled so that women are able to contribute equally to society and nation building.

Empowering women

In a yet to publish study that examines Training Needs for Women Empowerment, the need for a range of hard and soft skills was expressed by over 250 women. Of the hard skills, Financial Literacy emerged as the top training need for women empowerment with 64% giving it a top skill requirement as compared to Legal Literacy, Business Understanding, Digital Literacy and Technology Skills. We also asked the women who managed their finances: (Self, husband, father, CA/consultant) and over 40% women said they did not independently manage their own finances. Almost the entire response of 250 plus women ?expressed a strong need to take a more active role in managing their finances.

Intrinsic psychological factors that would enable financial inclusion of women through self-empowerment include:

• Empowering women to achieve financial independence and make their own decisions regarding their own finances. This is especially true of working women whose money is managed by either the father or the husband or in some cases, the brother.
• Encouraging women to identify and address ingrained beliefs that hold them back, and to engage with a negotiation based stance on an equitable salaries and promotions
• Training women in Financial Literacy that includes macro and micro level understanding and comprehension of financial matters.

Extrinsic factors would include

• Education of men in changing role of women to achieve increasing degrees of financial independence.
• Employers awareness building and creation of processes to ensure increasing inclusion and diversity
• Role of financial institutions in investment, advisory and financial assistance of women directly without the involvement of male family members.
• Education and awareness building about unconscious gender bias especially at grassroots level and also for employers and organizations.

Financial Inclusion means many things, and building skills of Financial Literacy is only the tip of the iceberg. It begins with Equal Pay and gender pay parity. This year (2023), the World Economic Forum has ranked India at 127 out of? 146 countries on gender equality. Though we have climbed 8 places in the ranking, it does nothing to cheer us. Their projections indicate that there is at least 200 years more work to go before women achieve pay parity at work.

The nation needs to put more efforts into bringing gender equality through education, social change and transformation in partnership with civil society. Special efforts need to be put at a national level in bringing gender equality to women at work. ?

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Author:

Dr. Aneeta Madhok

Managing Director,

Open Spaces Consulting

(www.openspaces.in )