About 98% Urban Women Involved In Household Financial Decisions: Crisil

Financial decision-making and labour force participation rate of women are rising in India says an AMFi-Crisil report. As per the periodic labour force survey participation of women in the labour force has risen to 37 per cent in 2022-23 from 23.3 per cent in 2017-18.

A survey done in October 2023, suggests that the urban labour force has grown from 20.4 per cent in 2017-18 to 25.4 per cent in 2022-23, but surprisingly rural women labour force has grown at a much faster rate from 24.6 per cent to 41.5 per cent during the same five years.

In financial decision-making, the autonomy of women depends on income source, age and stage of affluence. Over 65 per cent of women above the age of 45 years are managing their finances independently.

The report suggests that this is because of their experience and understanding of financial products and services.

If we talk about the income source of working women in India, 55 per cent are self-employed while 39 per cent are salaried. Seeing the working women in age brackets suggests, 41 per cent of women between the age group of 25-35 years are working.

Surprisingly 49 per cent of women between the age group of 36-45 are working and over 65 per cent of women above the age of 45 years are working. The report suggests more working women in the mid and higher age group are from rural areas.

The report also says women are now more inclined to new-age financial saving products like MFs and equities.

As per the report, women invest 15 per cent of their savings in mutual funds, which is higher than the overall household savings allocation to mutual funds at 8.4 per cent.

Women also invested 51 per cent of their savings in fixed deposits versus 46 per cent for overall households.

The report says women control about 20 per cent of the Industry assets under management (AUM).

Share of women in B30 cities AUM has increased from 17 per cent in March 2017 to 28 per cent in December 2023.

B30 cities as per AMFi include cities like Ajmer, Amritsar, Baroda, Bhubaneshwar, Chandigarh, Ghaziabad, Jaipur, Ludhiana etc. In the case of T30 (Top 30) cities, the AUM growth is, from 15 per cent to 19 per cent.

Goa has the highest AUM share of women investors at 40 per cent followed by Mizoram at 39 per cent, Meghalaya at 37 per cent, Mizoram and Nagaland and Arunachal Pradesh at 36 per cent.

Women investors in Gujarat, Maharashtra and Delhi's Assets under management (AUM) share stands at 32 per cent, 34 per cent and 33 per cent respectively.

All India's average of women investors share is AUM stands at 24 per cent.

The report also suggests that 50 per cent of the women investors fall in the age group of 25-44 years.

Below 25 years i.e 18 to 24 year age group only 4 per cent of women invest in financial products. In the age group of 45-58 years 21 per cent of women are investors while above 59 years the number stands at 16 per cent.

The report concludes that women are now breadwinners as well as taking increasing control of their finances, irrespective of whether they work or not.

About 98 per cent of urban women are involved in making long-term family decisions, including household financial investments. (ANI)