In general, finance literacy is very low among people. But it is even lower among women.
Many of you would have already watched the video, "The Divide" released by PayTm last year.
We will give you the name of a topic. If you know about that topic, step forward, else step backward - this is the experiment.
In the beginning when general questions were asked, we can see both men and women moving forward as they both are familiar with the topics.
But once the finance and investment questions come up, we can see men moving forward and women going backward.
Finally we are seeing a big gap between men and women. The financial knowledge gap between men and women was shown beautifully as a physical gap.
Why is there a financial knowledge gap between men and women? Why are the women lagging behind?
What can we do to fix that problem? We will dig deeper into that topic in this episode.
Hi. My name is Vijay Mohan. You are watching Investment Insights.
"All women should develop their financial knowledge at least as much as men" - we easily provide that advice and move on.
But it is not that easy in practice. For that, women has to come out of many hurdles.
The first hurdle for women is - themselves. Self inflicted.
"Financial management? Why should I bother about it? He takes care of all that. I am not interested in that at all" - saying that, many women would reject the idea of financial knowledge.
We cannot blame them for that. It is the way we are brought up.
"Men should earn the money for the family. Women should take care of the home and family" - This thinking is deep rooted in our mind set.
As we grew up with that mindset, it is difficult for us to break that mould.
Many women have started working nowadays. We have definitely come a long way in that regard.
How much are we saving? How much are we investing? Where are we investing? - Are women asking those questions taking an interest in finance? Not many.
Even among our channel viewers, women are just 13%.
Not just at home, we can see this lagging at work as well.
When it comes to salary negotiation, only a very few women actually negotiate.
Most of the women just accept the offered salary without any negotiation.
It's the job that is important. Salary for that job is not that important is their mentality.
This also lead to the wage gap between men and women.
So, how can a woman develop her interest in finance?
Women should not just stop at saying that they are equal to men, but they should show that in action as well.
Women should not reject anything saying that it is "his" department. But instead should ask themselves the question of, whether they would be able to do that task if they are not here.
If the answer is "No", then they should definitely develop interest to learn it. They should learn as well.
Don't have to learn everything, but they should definitely learn all the basics.
Our whole life is like a game. As husband and wife, we are playing this game as a team.
One partner could be a specialist in one thing. They could execute that with utmost skill as well.
But the other partner, even though they are not the specialist, they should definitely be aware of what other partner is doing.
That will help us to increase the chances of us winning this game.
At our home, my wife takes care of tracking and managing our expenses.
Though she manages it, I have a good visibility on what she does.
Similarly, I manage the investments. Though she is not directly involved, she knows what is happening on the investments side.
This is working out pretty well for our family. Even if one person is not here, the other would be able to manage easily.
I am not saying that this is how it should be done. But when it comes to a family, both husband and wife should have interest in the family finance.
Both should have complete knowledge about income, expenses and investments of the family.
When a husband and a wife play this game as a team like that, They will significantly increase their chances of winning.
Even if they are not winning, at least they can remove the chances of losing.
So - a request to all women.
Even if you are not interested in finance, try developing that interest. Start from basics.
You don't have to start with analyzing companies in stock market. Start with simple and easy ones.
How much money is coming into our account from income? How much is getting out from spending? Start with calculating those first.
If you know that, then you will come to know how much money you actually need to run your family.
If you start doing just this one task, trust me, you will automatically develop interest into finance.
"Where can we invest our savings? What are all the assets out there? What is the return that we can expect from those assets in long term?" - you will start asking those questions and learn in the process.
In few days, you will start motivating other women to develop their financial knowledge. You will expand your knowledge that much.
So don't think that you do not have interest in finance. Interest is not going to come by itself. We have to develop it.
Take the first step. Everything else will just follow.
Also, this lacking interest in finance topics - should not come out as a problem for our kids.
Without differentiating between a boy and a girl, we should teach financial concepts from what we know to our kids.
If they get exposed to financial topics when they are little, they would not have to go thru this pain of developing this interest later in their life.
"I hear what you are saying. But I do not have any time to do this at all...
"I have to take care of the home, kids. As if that is not enough, they need snacks as well.
"Then how else can I learn about finance?" - that is what you are saying right?
If you get past the first hurdle, developing an interest for finance - then you will find the time automatically.
You can reduce the time on phone and watching TV. If your hubby is on his WhatsApp, hand over managing kids to him and reserve that time for yourself.
If you put your mind to it, you will find the time automatically.
Not interested in finance, no time to learn it - they are all internal hurdles.
Only you can break away those shackles and come out.
Even if you break all those shackles and come out, though many husbands support,
there are some loving ones that say, "Why are you worried about this. I will take care of it."
They are the next hurdle for women.
I know your good intention. They are already doing enough at home. You do not want them to take on this additional burden. Right?
That is nice of you. But it is not good for the family.
In a family, if one person knows about all finance details pretty well and the other has no idea about it - it is a huge risk.
When something happens to others, we feel sorry and easily say that they could have been bit prepared to handle this. But are we prepared?
So if your wife is not interested in finance, then help her to develop interest.
Ask her about "Power of Compounding".
If our investment gets doubled every 5 years, what would be the worth of our investment in 50 years - ask questions like that and increase her curiosity in finance.
Share all the finance details with her. Family's income, savings, investments, tax rate - she should know everything regarding family's finance.
Also include her in all major financial decisions. Don't ignore her.
In some homes, things will be direct opposite of what I am saying here.
Wife will be very much interested in finance. But husband has no interest at all. These suggestions is for them as well.
So in short, finance is not a rocket science as we think. We have to learn some basic concepts. That is all.
If you do not know where to start, then start with the "Financial Planning" episode in this channel. Good Luck!
"Yes. What he is saying is right. I am going to learn about finance" - You must have decided now right?
But what happens actually? You will forget about all this Tomorrow and will start watching "Cook with Komaali".
You will be tested on this in March. Remember that.
We will soon meet again in another episode. Thank You.