What is the difference between a hostess and a kept woman? The hostess, receiving money from the man, manages it, investing in the household and children, and the kept woman spends only on herself, taking advantage of her, as a rule, temporary position. It was this answer to the question that became the key for psychologists in the dispute over who should manage the family budget: a man or a woman?
Tatiana Tarasova, Ph. D. in Psychology, cites the following data: when difficult times come in the family, a man thinks about where to earn extra money, and a woman - what to save on. Therefore, studies have found that in difficult times, even in the most patriarchal families, men often transfer the reins of financial control to their wives.
Another study, which Tatyana Tarasova refers to, suggests that the wife is in full control of the budget, mainly in low-income families. If the spouses are more or less well off, in most cases they manage the family money together.
According to the psychologist, a similar study was conducted by British scientists. And they came to the same conclusion: in families with a small income, women manage money. Financial issues are jointly resolved by spouses whose income is close to the middle class.
Germans Bodo Schaefer and Karola Furstl, authors of Money Good for Women, agree that 90% of shopaholics are women. But this, in their opinion, is explained not by the fact that women are inclined only to spend, but by the fact that they are the ones who choose products, clothes for themselves and children, medicines, developmental and educational programs and studios for children, kitchen and household accessories - everything something that is indispensable in modern life.
The authors propose to imagine a situation when a man was sent to a grocery store: 95% of the stronger sex will take the first thing that catches the eye from the list compiled by his wife, or the right one, according to his definition.
A woman in such a situation will pay attention to the manufacturer, the expiration date, the price of the product. As for clothing, according to online stores, 73% of their audience are women who shop online, choosing the best deals.
A woman knows how much needs to be set aside for utility bills, additional education for children, and their meals at school. She is always aware of how much a month is spent on household chemicals and medicines.
At the same time, according to Bodo Schaefer and Carola Firstl, a woman often forgets about herself. For example, one of the German companies as an experiment invited women to draw up a long-term financial plan.
In it, the ladies took into account almost everything, except for the fee for their work on drawing up this plan. At the same time, the company's specialists emphasize the fact that only women with a management education participated in the experiment.
It is almost impossible to imagine a man who would forget about the fee, psychologists assure.
At the same time, having received a substantial amount in her hands, a woman is better able to invest it than a man. This is the conclusion reached by experts from Bank of America Merrill Lynch. After analyzing the investment portfolios of their clients, they found that women, when engaged in investments, show great conservatism and discipline.
They are more willing to invest when they anticipate a potentially understandable and positive outcome. Men are more aggressive and risky when investing, say business officials. Therefore, among women, the return on investments exceeds the male one.
This is confirmed by Russian bank employees. Thus, Olga Vaksina, Head of Premium Banking Segments at Citigold & CitiGold Private Client, confirms that women investors choose the least risky instruments with a predominantly long-term nature.
Women do manage finances better than men, according to researchers at the American company Experian. As evidence, they cite the following data: women are 7.9% less likely to be late in paying their mortgage loans, they have 3.7% less credit card debt.
The Russian United Credit Bureau and the online lending service E Loan conducted a joint study of the payment discipline of borrowers in general for the MFO market and in the online segment.
According to them, in all market segments, men, in contrast to women, cope worse with their payment obligations - 42.1% of men and 37.7% of women admit that payments are overdue for more than 30 days. In the online segment, delays for the same period were noted in 18.2% of men and 17.5% of women.
Microfinance organization "Home Money" names housewives, teachers and young mothers on maternity leave the most reliable clients. Among these categories, the delay in payments does not exceed 15%.
The most non-performing payers with a huge share of delays are considered by MFO experts to be men aged 20 to 30 years.
And MFO "E-capusta", having analyzed the loans and expenses of its borrowers, explain that only 5.5% of them take a microloan to buy clothes and shoes. 15% spend loans on medical treatment and purchase of medicines, 12% - on groceries and 10% - on home renovations. At the same time, women find themselves in the role of bankrupt (unable to repay loans in general) twice less often than men.