Financial Literacy and Women - Why is it important?

The situation India is going through I doesn't imagine any other country is going through!

High level of technological adaptability, cultural shifts, mindset shift, open-mindedness, bold initiatives, and risk-taking ability which Indians are getting exposed to now a decade sooner or later compared to other countries. 

Though the country has evolved over a period of time but still chained itself to some deep-rooted traditional customs which aren't dealt diplomatically. Especially, even banks deny loans and advances to women and ask for surety in a male person's presence, making the situation wholly dependant. 

Education for girls in India is at 65% literacy rate in 2018 when compared to 82% male. Reasons like poor economic condition,s value of education, quality of education, no. of persons in the family, strict rules for girls in households, perception etc all contribute to low education for women. 

All in all, that's a clear explanation of why their confidence is even low and had to be more and more dependant on others for all their needs and be answerable pretty much situation like an organized culture of slavery.

In my life, I've seen ladies, girls, women abused for their dependence and no proper space for themselves and end up doing household chores which goes unaccountable and demonetized. According to WEF, the amount of household chore which women do at household if it charged it will move the economy GDP by 14% and reduce inflation by 1.4%. 

The society we live in gets bound in itself and stands as a barrier to advance and get the best for themselves. A lesson I read in my 3rd standard named "New Blue Dress" which narrates the story of a small gift given by her teacher to her student on her birthday bought freshness in the whole city. On her occasion of the girl's birthday, her teacher gifts a New Blue Dress because the society she lived in didn't the importance of birthdays and gifts. She presented herself to her mother who got mesmerized to see her daughter in that dress and started cleaning her house as a sign to match her dress's brightness and her father repairing the fence. This gave even the neighbors a hint to clean their houses and match their standards. within a week whole street started maintaining itself. A simple act of difference could impact whole street or even a city.

Why it cannot be like equality and its rights can be exercised by all without any discrimination on the basis of gender. My question is why there has to be a dependency of women on men. Be its decision making, financial decisions, and even personal decisions which happen to be seen in rural India.

In conversation with a vegetable seller who was an intermediate pass could possibly run her vegetable shop on a turnover of Rs 1000/- per day said the concepts she learned in intermediate were helpful for her to raise a bit more funds from local financers and could negotiate better interest rate.

Imagine the life of a working woman who is not only working for an organization but also working for her home that's like work up which makes her morally and professionally responsible for everything. 

Due to the lack of proper, quality of education, most of them don't even get to plan the things which they dream. Financial literacy and women are like north and south pole which are 2 variants of the same globe far from each other. 

In an Indian marriage sense, women's beauty is calculated by a man's earning ability and assets. The criteria here itself is biased in such a way where the metric variables are not even related to.

Financial literacy at least is important because it gives them a hope of what all mediums are available for them to be self-sufficient for themselves.  

An international American Bank CEO said in an interview that, the most multitasking multifaceted, multidisciplinary people in the world is not a CEO but a working women the amount of time, sense, energy, which are put in place to get the things done is truly remarkable in that sense.

Some of the ways Women can help themselves financially - 

SIP - Systematic Investment Plans are a small portion of investments say 100 or 500 which are invested periodically for a longer period of time. SIP is meant to be giving returns for a larger period of time only. And its growth is calculated in terms of  Compound interest. 

Recurring Deposit - SImilar to SIPs but less risky than. It's a  form of FD which is distributed over a shorter time period plus interest level remains to be the same in many aspects and it's operated by Banks.

Investments in Share Capital - Share capital is a negative terminology for 90% of the audience in India. Owing to its bad portrayal in news, economic issues etc. What people don't know is the multiplication of growth.

Chit Funds - Although organized chit fund industry is not suitable or not good in terms of returns but a traditional family run chit fund business is a good run for the money. For those who don't know chit fund is a 20-month periodical payment based mechanism between a group of 20 people, whosoever in this group needs money urgently will receive the amount on mutual understanding and this is solely based on trust and entry is only referral based. 

Invest in NPS - National Pension Scheme

Another SIP type mechanism for savings by the government of India. In this, an individual can repeatedly invest for a particular period of time or age whichever is maximum and then the same amount can be retrieved in old age in form of pension in a lump sum or monthly self-decided sum of money.

You should start thinking about yourself rather than others to think about you!