Survey shows 66 per cent single women do not make their own financial decisions

About 66 per cent single women say that they do not make their own financial decisions and 28 per cent depend on their fathers, reveals a new survey, adding that mere 5 per cent women said they depend on their mothers for money matters.

The findings are from the LXME Survey 2020, which interviewed 1,250 women aged between 25-54, across cities like Mumbai, Bengaluru, New Delhi, Mangalore, Pune, Jaipur, Kolkata, Indore, and Hyderabad, to assess money-related attitudes among women who were either single, married, or married with kids. When it came to married women, the number of women not making independent financial decisions increased to 69 per cent with the fathers being replaced by husbands or joint decision making. Unfortunately, the dependency keeps increasing as women have children with eventually only 24 per cent making decisions independently. Also, the rise in husbands making all decisions saw an increase from 17 per cent to 33 per cent.

A key takeaway here is that a woman's marital status and motherhood influences her money decision-making status. As women evolve in their life stages, they become less independent in taking money decisions. Do they prefer to share the responsibility or pass it on? It is evident they do not depend on their mothers for money matters, it is either their fathers or spouses. Social conditioning here plays an important role in shaping women's outlook towards financial planning, says LXME, a financial planning platform for women.

Additionally, only 7 per cent of the women surveyed mentioned their moms as financial decision-makers while 66 per cent of them said they do not make financial decisions. Yet, 91 per cent women teach their kids about money while 86 per cent said they inculcate good money habits in their kids. Almost 9 in 10 women have given their kids a piggy bank to save money. Ironically, only 24 per cent of these women actually take independent money decisions. Women form the early habits, but fathers become the role model for financial decision making, notes the survey.