“It’s easy to be independent when you’ve got money. But to be independent when you haven’t got a thing – that’s the Lord’s test” – Mahalia Jackson 

India’s financial services sector has been among the fastest growing sectors in the economy, a trend that is likely to persist, given the diverse opportunities that continue to emerge as the sector expands. There clearly exists potential employment for first-generation educated women from the informal sector who aspire to be gainfully employed in financial services. Although women constitute over 48% of the population, the patriarchal society of India considers women’s issues to be secondary. Safety, justice, and equality are some of the most prominent principles of our democracy that are not being exercised in their full spirit, despite several attempts. 

This brings me down to the much awaited debate of what empowerment actually means? Empowerment, a broad term usually propagating a positive connotation is experienced largely by societal minorities and often misconstrued by the majority – men – because they have not experienced its ramifications. According to the Cambridge dictionary, the meaning of ‘empowerment’ is the process of gaining freedom and power to control what happens to you. One can gain the power of control fundamentally through the freedom of decision making. The process of decision making encourages confidence to help claim one’s rights. But all of this power stems from being financially independent. Financial independence is one solution that can help Indian women overcome various obstacles in different walks of life.

I remember working on an assignment that talks about feminist perspectives on family and financial agency in this regard. What really stood out for me is the understanding of how the family system can entail or constrain women’s freedom. Around the globe, women still do the vast majority of domestic labor — not only tending the house but also raising and caring for children. Feminist scholars have attacked traditional approaches to the family that obscure this inequality. For example, they have criticized the dominant economic approaches to the family that regard the head of the household as an altruistic agent of the interests of all the family members. Our typical understanding of how men are regarded as the breadwinners and women as child-bearers parochially define the gender roles persisting in the society. 

Feminist economists and sociologists have also shown how women’s role in parenting constrains their ability to pursue careers and compete for demanding jobs. Many women, therefore, remain economically dependent on their male partners, and vulnerable to poverty in the event of divorce. In one widely cited study, ex-husbands’ standard of living was found to have risen by 42% the year after their divorce, while ex-wives’ standard of living was reduced by 78%. This huge discrepancy in income and wealth results from a number of factors, including the fact that women who have devoted themselves to raising children usually have lower job qualifications than their husbands and less work experience. According to the Global Fund for Women Report, 1992, women’s economic dependency and lack of financial agency, in turn, allow them to be subject to physical, sexual, or psychological abuse by their husbands or other male partners. Women have an asymmetric ability to exit from marriage, and this gives husbands/male partners considerably more power and bargaining advantage within the marriage.

The surveys carried out by the United Nations are proof of how women remain dependent upon their husbands. About one in three married women from developing countries has no control over household spending on major purchases (2015). In addition, women often have more limited opportunities for educational attainment, employment outside of the household, asset and land ownership, the inheritance of assets, and control over their financial futures in general. Increasing women’s financial inclusion is especially important as women disproportionately experience poverty, stemming from unequal divisions of labor and a lack of control over economic resources. 

The gender-based barriers to financial inclusion consists of three headers. 

(I) Demand Side Barriers  

• Lack of bargaining power within the household
• Concentration in lower-paying economic activities
• Lack of assets for collateral
• Lack of formal identification
• Reduced mobility due to time constraints or social norms
• Lower rates of cell phone ownership among women, needed to access many digital products

(II) Supply Side Barriers

• Inappropriate product offerings
• Lack of gender-specific policies and practices for product design and marketing
• Inappropriate distribution channels

(III) Legal and Regulatory Barriers

• Account opening requirements that disadvantage women
• Barriers to obtaining formal identification
• Legal barriers to owning and inheriting property and other collaterals
• Lack of gender-inclusive credit reporting systems

This piece has been written by Aysha Saleem. 

Aysha is a gender advocacy enthusiast and wishes to be a part of the change through her words which she believes are bound to bring revolution. Her work ethic enables her to propagate her passion towards gender equality in all possible arenas. A zealous literature student, her writings hold immense conviction.