Who is responsible for the financial wellbeing of women?
ANZ Bank recently released a report on the financial wellbeing outcomes for women.
You can access the full report here.
I want to share it with you because it’s really fascinating to see the stats that go behind what we subconsciously know to be true in our society right now. It’s so good that we have data that support financial outcomes for women. The fact is that financial wellbeing outcomes for women are lower than men across all demographics, all age groups and all walks of life in Australia. And why is this? Might it be that women are worse with managing their money? Women don’t care as much as men? Or just because they have some time off to care for their children?
This is where the data gets good. It is showing us that women have better savings habits, they budget, and they are better at investing. The statistics say our behaviours around money are better in comparison to men. If our savings habits and money management are good, then what’s going so wrong? I would commentate that women are forced into saving harder, budgeting better and investing better to survive. We’re working with less (hello gender pay gap), so what we have, we need to make work hard.
What the data shows
ANZ data analysis reveals that 54.5% of the influence on our overall financial wellbeing is determined by socio-economic conditions. This is income, education, employment, housing, community safety and social support. Less than half of our financial wellbeing can be determined by knowledge, experience, behaviour, financial confidence and control, money management and investment behaviour, saving and spending behaviour and attitudes. All the things we think make up how well we’re going with our money only contribute 45.5% of our financial wellbeing.
Our financial wellbeing is how we feel about our money, how optimistic we are for the future and whether we think we’ve got enough to live on in our life right now and for the future. The fact is that 54% of our financial wellbeing is made up by our socio economic conditions. So many of those things we can’t influence and they certainly don’t favour the female gender.
Source: ANZ Financial Wellbeing Spotlight on Australian Women, March 2023
Earning potential at the heart of financial wellbeing for women
If we deep dive into the positive forces in our socio economic conditions that can potentially improve and have a positive impact on our financial wellbeing the biggest influencer is our earning potential. It’s the biggest thing. So at the core of it, what a woman earns is the biggest influence on her financial wellbeing. I want you to just stop and pause here and think about every single woman you know and think about her earning potential. To me this is horrifying for lack of thinking of a more appropriate word. This report points out that we simply need equality in the workforce and our earning potential. To be able to work and to be paid fairly and equally to men. This will fix so many systemic problems that we have around our financial wellbeing, our ability to feel secure for our future and our overall health and wellbeing. Full stop.
… however, I’m happy to continue…
We know that women are underemployed, are less likely to have a full-time job compared to a man. More likely to have a part-time job compared to a man and we know that we are more likely to be the primary care givers and take on the burdens of the household. Especially in the case of separation or divorce, and particularly if you become a single parent.
To mention the negative impacts on socio economic conditions, they are your health, mental health (worse for women and particularly younger women) and having dependents (it’s well known that women are more likely to be primary care givers).
What life deals us, determines our financial wellbeing. How do you feel about this status quo? If you’re a guy, then maybe okay, because you may not even need to think about this in your everyday. But it is certainly something to think about when it concerns every woman that you have in your life, be it a partner or your daughter, sister, mother or friend. Let’s just say 50% of the people you know…
I want to impart with you, that this is how our society is set up. It doesn’t support women the same as it supports men. We have created this. Women are having worse outcomes by participating in the way our society currently works.
Employers have power and responsibility to uplift financial wellbeing
Our team here at The Money Collective has been triggered by this report and it’s bought out a lot of conversations. When faced with the data I’m now hearing women’s stories in a different light. I suppose in the past I didn’t want to believe the difference in outcomes are gender based. But we need to accept that it is so and we need to do something in our society to uplift financial wellbeing outcomes for all Australians. I think the workplace is the core place to do this because we know that the biggest positive influencer is our earning capacity. So we need workplaces that are going to support women to stay at work, enjoy work, to make happy workplaces and flexible workplaces and get creative and understand that you have a really big impact on a woman’s journey in life.
So in conclusion, I believe women are already doing the heavy lifting. It’s time for everyone and everything else to catch up to them.
Access the full ANZ report Financial Wellbeing Spotlight on Australian Women, March 2023 here.
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Blog article by:
MEL PEARCE
Co-Founder, Financial Wellbeing Coach and Mortgage Broker
The Money Collective