Women, at every point and in every way, always want to make a difference in any space they find themselves. Most times, they are not able to explore and succeed because they lack basic financial training that will help to guide their decisions, so that they can scale the things they do.
The recurring question on the mind of most female folks remains, “For how long will the female members of the society remain disproportionately excluded from the formal financial systems of the world in which they live, all in the name of gender inequality?”
In a research, the Global Findex of 2014 revealed that 65 per cent of men had bank accounts, while only 58 per cent of the females had access to such privilege, thereby denying them the opportunity of participating and benefiting from financial provisions made by both the government and corporate organisations that are willing to support women-owned Small and Medium-sized Enterprises.
With the alarming number of women globally that have not been equipped with basic financial literacy skills, achieving the Sustainable Development Goals might be difficult. This is because women are drivers, and properly equipping them with necessary financial literacy skills will lead to financial inclusion, which is key to general social inclusion and one of the top pillars of successful global development.
Research has proven that financial inclusion plays a vital role in women’s soco-economic empowerment and gender equality in all spheres.
It is, therefore, important that organisations, social influencers and policy makers integrate their various efforts from different levels to increase financial inclusion for women.
Bridging the gender financial literacy gap is possible and we can achieve this through the establishment of gender mainstreaming, increasing gender diversity and including women in formal financial systems where men have overly occupied.
It is also very neccessary for policy makers to constantly conduct sex-disaggregated data. This will help to clearly state and inform financial literacy advocates of the current state of financial inclusion and the need to carry the female gender along in financial literacy programmes.
Further, organisations should be encouraged to review their emoluments for their female staff, as most of them pay peanuts to women because of their gender and not because they are unproductive.
A research conducted by Korn Ferry showed that most women get an estimated 15 per cent less than their male counterparts around the world.
Moreso, financial literacy advocates should fight to ensure that equal training opportunities are provided for both genders. It is only when these girls are given adequate opportunity that they can drive the society to the height it desires.
Going through an article written by Gina Heng, she shared how one of the top medical universities in Japan set up systems that automatically lowered the entrance exam results of most female applicants, to ensure that the ratio of the total number of women in each class is below 30 per cent.
Hurting, right? But this was their constant practice for not less than eight years; consciously denying girls the opportunity of studying their desired course in the university of their choice.
In conclusion, corporate organisations that are particular in driving this financial literacy movement can take a step further to sponsor financial literacy programmes organised by not-for-profits like GoDo Hub to speed up the change that we desire.
