An interesting article on Reuters caught my eye as it continued to explore the much-investigated “gender gap’ between males and females, this time on my pet subject of personal finance. According to Reuters:
“Men and women handle their personal finances much differently, research shows, with men more likely to keep a close eye on their spending and investments and to pay their bills on time. The data showed two-thirds of men but just one-third of women said they regularly pay their credit card balances in full, said Liz Davidson, chief executive of the company based in Manhattan Beach, California. Also, 90 percent of men said they pay their bills on time each month but only 74 percent of women said so, it said. It said 71 percent of men but 53 percent of women have a handle on their cash flow so they spend less than they earn each month. More than half of men but just a third of women said they have an emergency fund to pay their bills for a few months if they lose their job, it said. Forty percent of men but just 24 percent of women said they were confident their investments were allocated appropriately, while 73 percent of men but just 40 percent of women said they had a general knowledge of stocks, bonds and mutual funds.”
I would actually have said that women are more likely to pay off their credit card balances in full but obviously i was wrong. I find a lot of my female friends find money talk quite exasperating while men will talk about it for hours. Not to say however that the talk always ends up in wise financial decisions. However, lately a lot of women are becoming very keen on managing their finances and this can be evidenced by the large number of women-only investment groups. Impulse shopping i guess contributes a lot to spending more than you earn and this may afflict the womenfolk more than the men seeing as i can walk around an entire shop and actually find nothing worth buying..shoes and clothing included. I would be seriously tempted in an electronics shop but obviously you cant pick up anything worth Ksh. 1,500 like you would a shoe. I was also thrown a bit by the “Emergency Fund” findings. I could have sworn women are better are setting aside money for a rainy day!
According to Reuters, most of those answering the questionnaires earned between $60,000 and $75,000 and were assessing their own financial situations from January through April 2009. Do you think the findings would have been similar if the survey was conducted in Kenya?
My Road To Wealth 
No.
I think in kenya women are better at handling money than men though they may do not earn more than the men.
Great blog. Interesting journey!
I believe there are two likely causes for this: 1) Impulse spending like eating is a compulsive response to emotions. And women are more emotional. Sometimes that is to our advantage when it comes to influencing others but sometimes it means we are our own worst enemy. 2) Women aren’t as interested in money for the sake of having it as men are- we are interested in what it can buy. Thus, we don’t focus on the game of accumulation the way that men do. We don’t use it to keep score. We have been bad about not wanting to discuss money but as more of us are working we are paying more attention. I blog about these topics at http://stillettochick.typepad.com/blog/2009/06/money-and-our-two-different-realities.html