Promoting women’s economic empowerment.

We are living in an age of widespread acceptance of the notion that for families to be “settled”, it is important that financial savviness exist – and does so amongst all members of the family (not just the chief wage earner, but also women, children).

In fact, data reveals that a significant shift in modern attitudes is that women and girls need to become more financially savvy.

A progressive shift in attitude:

What is heartening about this progressive attitude shift is that it is prevalent among both men and women. Today, most family members agree that it is imperative, that their women and girls too become more savvy in matters of personal finance.

In light of this shift, a discussion on promoting women’s economic empowerment is a timely one. And a fairly important one too.

Empowerment is easier said than done:

Constructive, practical and empathetic intervention is desired, and needed, to promote, accelerate women’s economic empowerment. A majority of the target audience of advertising and marketing of brands world is women. Such an intervention is one that can positively impact the lives of the people we serve in the marketing and advertising fraternity – mainly women and girls.

Empowering Allies wanted – via brands

Brands can be allies in promoting women’s economic empowerment and there are 3 ways to begin this allyship. Organisation brands, employer brands, service or product brands, education brands, entrepreneur brands, social impact brands and others can channelise their focus and resources to help promote the economic empowerment of women as most apt for them.

Beti ko finance padhao (Teach your daughter finance)

The overarching concept is about a call to action – to begin economic empowerment of women early, and at scale. The essence of the kind momentum desired is captured in a phrase called – “Teach your daughter finance” or “Beti to finance padhao”.

Beti is an affectionate term for the daughter in the home, whether a young or adult daughter and thus, it speaks to and for potentially every daughter in India.

“Beti ko finance padhao” or teach your daughter finance includes three avenues for allyship, to begin with, that brands can actively consider supporting: starting early, doing simple, enabling personal – each of these is amplified below.

1. Starting early matters: “Beti ko finance padhao” is a compelling call to action and an early one too. It spotlights a particular, practical focus within the

overall focus of education for girls and women. Focussing on personal finance can also help women and girls to expand the value of their education rupee as well and prevent costly trial and error across lifestages. It is widely believed that when women and girls are educated the positive impact of education multiplies – it radiates to the entire family. This is true for financial education as much as health or language education.

2. Simple engagements matter: Day-to-day practical learning under “as is” conditions make financial savviness come alive in non-theoretical ways. Experiential learning is a powerful form of learning – like learning to ride a cycle. Similarly, experiential learning via activities that involve simple financial experiences are a great place to start. “Education” can include lessons around shopping (dealing with money – familiarising with denominations, handling change, being responsible for spending, understanding the value of a rupee), saving (planned not instant gratification from gifts or pocket money), keeping accounts (written record of finances). These learnings can lay the foundation of life long financial savviness and good financial habits building.

3. Space for personal finances matters: Women and girls are widely credited, for generations, as being “finance ministers” of their homes, deftly managing the monthly home budget. They know how to run home, kitchen, clothing budgets. Despite many constraints, they even manage to tuck away small saving for a rainy day, at times. It is time to encourage women actively to become savvy about their personal finances as well. They can learn to be hands on about their personal finances, not just about home finances. Getting “hands on” familiarity with personal financial forms, personal banks accounts, personal cash withdrawal, personal investing, etc. Creating timely, apt interventions to enable this can be empowering. It helps if the learning space easy to implement, track, refine, nurture, be inviting not intimidating, safe, sensitive and inclusive. Enabling the notion of such a personal space for managing personal finances, matters.