Study: 62% of Women Say They’re Financial Heads of Household
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
It turns out that diamonds aren’t a girl’s best friend, after all. A majority of women — 79%, in fact — would rather receive $25,000 in stock than $25,000 in jewelry, a new study finds.
The cable TV Oxygen Network, which is directed at a female audience, surveyed 2,800 men and women, ages 18 to 70, in New York, Chicago, Nashville, Los Angeles, and Denver and found that more than 50% of married women consider themselves the financial head of the household.
“What we’re seeing is that women are really starting to take the lead and are much more in control of their own money and much bigger influences on household money,” a vice president of research at Oxygen, Karen Ramspacher, said.
The survey, which is conducted annually by the Oxygen Network on various topics, found that 62% of women consider themselves the financial head of their household and 92% make or contribute to financial decisions in the home.
The study comes on the heels of another survey, published on Saturday in the New York Times, that found young women in New York earn higher wages than men of the same age.
The study, prepared by a Queens College demographer, Andrew Beveridge, showed that New York City women ages 21 to 30 who were working full-time made 117% of men’s wages.
But despite the increase in women’s wages and financial position in the home, women continue to be underrepresented in the public domain, the study found. Sixty-six percent of women think they are more financially savvy than they are given credit for, and 44% feel that financial professionals don’t show women enough respect. Moreover, 83% of women said they cannot relate to financial advertisements, and 94% said advertisements for financial companies are not targeted at women.
Ms. Ramspacher said the last finding can be negative for women and is also a big loss for financial advertisers. With this study, Ms. Ramspacher said she hopes to show the financial world that women are an untapped resource from which the financial industry can benefit.
“Women don’t give themselves enough credit and society doesn’t give them enough credit for being funny, technology savvy, and in this case financially responsible and in control,” Ms. Ramspacher said. “It benefits women for advertisers to speak to them relevantly because it allows women more access to these important and invaluable resources.”
