33% women do not invest money at all: Survey

Participation of women in the workforce may have increased, but they remain cautious and dependent on family members when it comes to managing their money. In association with Axis My India, a survey done by LXME, a financial platform for women – has found that 33% of women in India do not invest at all and the number is as high as 40% in the 21-25 years age group. Overall, 55% of women in the country are either not investing or are unaware of their investments.

The survey was carried out among 4,000 women across different age groups, life stages and occupations across metros, Tier II & III cities. It reveals where women stand on money matters and provides an overview of their financial awareness, attitude towards saving and investing, key barriers and drivers for making money decisions and involvement in decision making.

Saving and spending habits

Women are considered to be great savers however, LXME’s report suggests that 78% of women save less than 20% on their income, 56% save less than 10% and 14% of women do not save any money. This means a majority is not even following the golden rule of saving at least 20% of their income.

Upon segregating the saving habits between working and non-working women, the report finds that 50% of non-working saved between 6-20% of their household income in contrast to 45% working women. However, 31% of working women saved over 20% of their income as opposed to 13% of non-working women.

A majority of women invest only 6-10% of their income. This could be derived from apprehensions related to investments primarily emanating from the lack of knowledge. A massive, 92% of women revealed that they do not access any financial investment related websites.

Among the respondents, as the highest 39% of women stated low funds to be the reason for not investing their money. This is followed by a lack of financial awareness at 12% and fear of losing savings at 10%.

Women investment trends

LXME’s survey findings also offer key insights on the investment trends among women. The report found 59% of women had no insurance (life or health), despite two years of the pandemic.

Among the investment instruments preferred by women, gold and fixed deposit top the chart with 42% and 35% stating as their top choices respectively followed by PPF (23%) and traditional instruments like chit funds (17%). Women in India are shying away from market-based investments with a low 14% investing in mutual funds and just 10% in stocks.

So, overall, only 13% of women invest in financial assets whereas 35% of women invest in traditional instruments.