The other day, I innocently asked Dear Daughter why she did not ask me to go to the store instead of her dad. To which she quickly responded: “Mom, you’re kind of cheap…” After the initial maternal hurt and shock, coupled with the realization that my dear child also believes buying all of Sephora amounts to a very affordable purchase, I got to thinking about what financial power truly means for working women and moms.
For as long as I can remember, I’ve valued financial security. Raised by a single mom who often reminded us kids that money doesn’t grow on trees, I understood the value of money very early on. However, for the longest time, this understanding was coupled with fear. It was the same fear that also kept me paralyzed when it came to money matters later on in life, from negotiating my salaries to learning to invest. Fast-forward a few decades punctuated by personal growth, marriage, motherhood, and career changes, and my financial outlook has been on quite the journey along with me. The more I learned to value myself and my unique purpose, the more my outlook on money morphed from fearful reliance to secure appreciation.
GENDER PERSPECTIVES ON FINANCIAL POWER.
The reality is, much of our money mindset and attitudes about money are often rooted in gender-based social conditioning. Indeed, research clearly shows men and women hold different conceptions of money. While men tend to consider money as a success and power symbol, women tend to consider money both as a source of security and anxiety. Men also tend to be more prone to pursuing financial investments than women. However, both genders share similar attitudes toward monitoring savings and expenses.
WOMEN’S FINANCIAL CHALLENGES.
Women are also no strangers to significant financial challenges. One of the latter can be summarized in one simple but loaded word: “Busyness”. According to an April 2023 Pew Research report, women complete on average 4.6 hours of housework as compared to 1.9 hours for men. Where both spouses share the same earning power, women take on 6.9 hours of household chores vs. 5.1 hours for men. This disparity obviously and significantly reduces women’s availability and ability to dedicate time to financial education and growth.
Indeed, the 2021 Survey of Household Economics and Decision Making (SHED) reveals substantial gender differences in financial literacy. While this is partially due to lack of motivation and confidence, other factors such as the wage gap, time spent by women outside the workforce, and the inequity in gender’s responsibilities at home, are also to blame. Considering women tend to live on average longer than their male counterparts, these staggering differences tend to impact them more heavily.
THE FEMINIZATION OF WEALTH.
Despite these challenges, women are thankfully far from being out of the financial game. If you’ve heard of the Great Wealth Transfer, you may know it’s an enormous shift of financial ownership in the United States set to occur in the next couple of decades. Currently, half of the wealth in the US is held by Boomers. However, in the next 20 years, it is predicted to land in the hands of a majority of women. As women tend to live longer than men, more women Boomers will be in charge of their family’s wealth. Additionally, a record number of single millennial women are set to inherit most of the future wealth. As a result, by 2030, American woman are predicted to manage at least $30 trillion in wealth. Which is more than the nation’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP), in the hands of women! Talk about the feminization of wealth…
FINANCIAL WELLNESS IS SELF-CARE.
For all these reasons and beyond, financial self-care is now more than ever an absolute necessity for women. Caring for one’s finances as a working woman and mom is an act of radical self-care and community care. Indeed,financial self-care impacts families and communities by enlarging the pool of available financial resources, and providing positive examples for other women. It also requires reshaping what wealth means to and for women…
RESHAPING WOMEN’S FINANCIAL POWER.
For far too long, women have had a complicated relationship with money. I know I certainly have. Whenever I used to think about money, I would also think “stress”. And I’m far from being the only one here… According to a 2023 Fidelity Investments survey, stress is the first word women use to describe their feelings about money. Meanwhile, men tend to associate finances with the word “hopeful”. Difference much?
The 2022 Ipsos study published in the Women, Money, Confidence: A Lifelong Relationship report indicates most women manage their day-to-day finances well. However, it appears they struggle with longer term financial goals such as paying down debt, retirement and emergency savings.
Faced with these challenges, redefining wealth as women also means:
– CHANGING OUR MONEY MINDSET
I don’t know about you, but I’ve certainly struggled with a scarcity mindset about money. While I’ve always made it a point to budget, save and invest, it was more out of a sense of lack and fear, than a belief in abundance and purpose. It took literally changing my mind about what financial security and power really mean, to even begin my journey into financial growth. And this is more gender-based than we often want to believe… Research shows while men tend to exhibit a higher risk tolerance as related to financial decisions, women tend to prioritize financial security and be more risk-averse. These biological and psychological gender differences result in the different money mindsets exhibited by women and men.
However, changing our money mindsets as working women and moms doesn’t necessarily equate behaving like men. Rather, it means identifying our money fears and addressing them as proactively, and effectively as possible. Many of these fears come from traumas passed on from generation to generation as early as in childhood. Debunking these while renewing how we view and think about money, is an indispensable part of growth and evolution.
-DON’T JUST KNOW YOUR WORTH, EMBODY IT!
Realizing our worth as working women and moms is a lifelong journey of unlearning society’s gender value system. It’s the mental, spiritual and psychological process of shedding the burden of shame, guilt, and excessive self-sacrifice.
It’s also a matter of re-learning our values in our personal and professional life, wherever finances are concerned. At work, we may measure professional worth in terms of professional fit, personal fulfillment and salary expectations. On a personal level, it’s about educating ourselves financially in the short and long-term. It’s also about developing an investment and financial mindset rooted in a spirit of financial abundance rather than scarcity.
– BOUNDARY UP!
Last but not least, implementing strong financial boundaries is key to stepping into our financial power. Most importantly, learning to say “no” to internal or external financial pressures, in order to say “yes” to financial growth and empowerment, is crucial. This can take the form of flexible budgeting, wise investments, or strong personal limits.
Setting, and keeping, financial boundaries has certainly been an ongoing journey for me. As financial power takes on very many different forms through the various seasons of our life and work, it requires different evolving versions of ourselves as well. Awareness then is the first step to creating, adjusting and upholding effective financial boundaries.
IN CONCLUSION…
All in all, stepping into our financial power, especially at the dawn of the feminization of wealth era, is a lifelong journey. However, in light of the Great Wealth Transfer set to occur in the U.S. in the next decade, it is more relevant and important than ever. Despite its challenges, stepping into our financial power as working women and moms may just be one of the most enlightening and rewarding journeys of our lives and careers. One that holds the unique potential and power of teaching us about our worth, our power and the legitimacy of our own unique purpose.
How will you step into your financial power in this season?
The Corporate Sis.
