Financial Security and Gender
Aug. 28th, 2006 10:13 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
livingdebI'm not usually a fan of gender studies because I don't generally find the genders to be all that different. However, the "bag lady" study is pretty interesting to me.
This is a study of how attitudes about finances differ between men and women. The result that's grabbing the most attention is that almost half of all women fear losing everything and becoming bag ladies.
I'd actually heard this before, so it didn't surprise me. When I first heard it, I actually was one of those people, but I'm not anymore. I still believe that I could become a bag lady. (The Great Depression wiped out most stocks, increased the unemployment rate, and when people couldn't pay their mortgage, or even just their property taxes when the mortgage was paid off, their houses got repossessed.) But I don't fear it. I now feel that it is extremely unlikely--usually everything doesn't go wrong at once for everyone. I feel it is unlikely that I will lose my job and my house and my stocks, even though I feel that an attack on my city (while I'm out of town, say) could accomplish this.
I'm used to finance studies saying that women are still making $0.60 or $0.70 on the dollar compared to men, but that wasn't mentioned at all in the news release for this study. Instead they are saying things like women's real median income has increased over 60% over the past thirty years, while men's real median income has remained about the same. And it is expected that by 2010, women will control 60% of wealth in the United States. I've never heard anything like this except that women are more likely to go to college than men nowadays.
Here's my favorite quote from the news release: "Women are more likely to attribute arguments about money to issues of power and control, while men are more likely to attribute it to trust." To me that says men want to be in charge of the finances and women want to share control. So women feel that men are hogging the power, and men feel that if women just trusted them, this wouldn't be an issue.
The most surprising thing to me is how much more women worry about financial security than men do, and what kinds of things happen as a result. Imagine one partner having a tra-la-la, we'll figure things out as we go along, winging it sort of personality, and the other partner having a be prepared sort of personality. The first one is more likely to be comfortable living from paycheck to paycheck. If anything goes wrong, they can just charge up credit cards, sleep on friends' couches, get a part-time job, start eating cheap food at home, stuff like that. They might be very generous when they are in the money, and so it's easy to collect favors when things go the other way.
The second one is going to want to put all their extra money into lots of insurance, retirement accounts, buying a house and paying it off as quickly as possible, etc.
The first is all about living it up while you can and the second is about never having to be a bag lady. Even in the olden days when only husbands worked outside the home and wives got a small allowance for groceries and personal spending, wives were often inclined to economize as much as possible so they would have some money leftover to put into savings. And they would often not tell their husbands about this savings because they felt that the husband would see the large chunk of money as a new boat or something, when it had been saved for something more like unemployment insurance. I've even heard of people lying about how much things cost so they can get a bigger allowance so they can save more.
And in the olden days when men were the only breadwinners, in situations where they could not find a job for a long time, it was not uncommon to run away in shame or commit suicide because they could not properly provide for their family. Isn't that just horribly sad? It still happens in some families living that traditional lifestyle. So even they have a stake in financial security.
I wonder why there's such a big gender difference. Is it because of a perception that women don't have as many options as men? Is it because of who makes the babies? Who lives the longest? Who typically makes less in the workplace?
What's really creepy to me is that I fit so many of the descriptions of women in this study. I'm highly educated, making more money than in the past, concerned about financial security over having toys, and I really did fear becoming a bag lady.
The main difference between me and females as described in this study is that I wouldn't trust a professional financial adviser as far as I could throw this person and have educated myself about financial matters. "Women view themselves as carrying more responsibilities and are therefore burdened with more worries; men see themselves as more analytical and more open to taking risks." I actually see myself as extremely analytical, and this is what keeps me from some displaying other stereotypically female behavior.
For example, I am not paying my house off early because I know I'm likely to increase my net worth more by investing that money elsewhere.
Also, I have most of my investments in stocks, even though these are considered high-risk, because over the long term I consider them to be low-risk (more likely to keep up with inflation than "safe" investments). Plus, my pension plan and job are with the government, so those are relatively "safe" the way government bonds are--so putting my other money in stocks is also a way to diversify.
And unlike the stereotypical woman, I do not think I am at risk for overpaying for insurance. I don't pay for credit card or other small-time insurance--if I'm in trouble I can use my savings to continue paying off credit cards if I have a balance, which I generally don't. If I needed life insurance, I would get only term insurance and only for an amount that would let my dependents get by reasonably. This is because the money saved by using these cheaper options can be better used in other ways and because I expect to live a long time. I also get the biggest deductible on insurance possible, both because I can bank the savings to use when necessary and because you should never make small claims anyway because your rates will go up and you will look bad. (Okay, I had to learn this last one the hard way. I admit it.)
One problem for people who want security is that no matter how much you prepare, something bad can still happen. This means it's possible to focus too much of your life on security issues. At a certain point, it's good to stand back and tell yourself that you have done enough. And maybe learn some of those winging skills as well.
Tomorrow I will write about strategies for gaining security.
This is a study of how attitudes about finances differ between men and women. The result that's grabbing the most attention is that almost half of all women fear losing everything and becoming bag ladies.
I'd actually heard this before, so it didn't surprise me. When I first heard it, I actually was one of those people, but I'm not anymore. I still believe that I could become a bag lady. (The Great Depression wiped out most stocks, increased the unemployment rate, and when people couldn't pay their mortgage, or even just their property taxes when the mortgage was paid off, their houses got repossessed.) But I don't fear it. I now feel that it is extremely unlikely--usually everything doesn't go wrong at once for everyone. I feel it is unlikely that I will lose my job and my house and my stocks, even though I feel that an attack on my city (while I'm out of town, say) could accomplish this.
I'm used to finance studies saying that women are still making $0.60 or $0.70 on the dollar compared to men, but that wasn't mentioned at all in the news release for this study. Instead they are saying things like women's real median income has increased over 60% over the past thirty years, while men's real median income has remained about the same. And it is expected that by 2010, women will control 60% of wealth in the United States. I've never heard anything like this except that women are more likely to go to college than men nowadays.
Here's my favorite quote from the news release: "Women are more likely to attribute arguments about money to issues of power and control, while men are more likely to attribute it to trust." To me that says men want to be in charge of the finances and women want to share control. So women feel that men are hogging the power, and men feel that if women just trusted them, this wouldn't be an issue.
The most surprising thing to me is how much more women worry about financial security than men do, and what kinds of things happen as a result. Imagine one partner having a tra-la-la, we'll figure things out as we go along, winging it sort of personality, and the other partner having a be prepared sort of personality. The first one is more likely to be comfortable living from paycheck to paycheck. If anything goes wrong, they can just charge up credit cards, sleep on friends' couches, get a part-time job, start eating cheap food at home, stuff like that. They might be very generous when they are in the money, and so it's easy to collect favors when things go the other way.
The second one is going to want to put all their extra money into lots of insurance, retirement accounts, buying a house and paying it off as quickly as possible, etc.
The first is all about living it up while you can and the second is about never having to be a bag lady. Even in the olden days when only husbands worked outside the home and wives got a small allowance for groceries and personal spending, wives were often inclined to economize as much as possible so they would have some money leftover to put into savings. And they would often not tell their husbands about this savings because they felt that the husband would see the large chunk of money as a new boat or something, when it had been saved for something more like unemployment insurance. I've even heard of people lying about how much things cost so they can get a bigger allowance so they can save more.
And in the olden days when men were the only breadwinners, in situations where they could not find a job for a long time, it was not uncommon to run away in shame or commit suicide because they could not properly provide for their family. Isn't that just horribly sad? It still happens in some families living that traditional lifestyle. So even they have a stake in financial security.
I wonder why there's such a big gender difference. Is it because of a perception that women don't have as many options as men? Is it because of who makes the babies? Who lives the longest? Who typically makes less in the workplace?
What's really creepy to me is that I fit so many of the descriptions of women in this study. I'm highly educated, making more money than in the past, concerned about financial security over having toys, and I really did fear becoming a bag lady.
The main difference between me and females as described in this study is that I wouldn't trust a professional financial adviser as far as I could throw this person and have educated myself about financial matters. "Women view themselves as carrying more responsibilities and are therefore burdened with more worries; men see themselves as more analytical and more open to taking risks." I actually see myself as extremely analytical, and this is what keeps me from some displaying other stereotypically female behavior.
For example, I am not paying my house off early because I know I'm likely to increase my net worth more by investing that money elsewhere.
Also, I have most of my investments in stocks, even though these are considered high-risk, because over the long term I consider them to be low-risk (more likely to keep up with inflation than "safe" investments). Plus, my pension plan and job are with the government, so those are relatively "safe" the way government bonds are--so putting my other money in stocks is also a way to diversify.
And unlike the stereotypical woman, I do not think I am at risk for overpaying for insurance. I don't pay for credit card or other small-time insurance--if I'm in trouble I can use my savings to continue paying off credit cards if I have a balance, which I generally don't. If I needed life insurance, I would get only term insurance and only for an amount that would let my dependents get by reasonably. This is because the money saved by using these cheaper options can be better used in other ways and because I expect to live a long time. I also get the biggest deductible on insurance possible, both because I can bank the savings to use when necessary and because you should never make small claims anyway because your rates will go up and you will look bad. (Okay, I had to learn this last one the hard way. I admit it.)
One problem for people who want security is that no matter how much you prepare, something bad can still happen. This means it's possible to focus too much of your life on security issues. At a certain point, it's good to stand back and tell yourself that you have done enough. And maybe learn some of those winging skills as well.
Tomorrow I will write about strategies for gaining security.