28 May 2024, by Claudia Segre
Is there a lack of official data on Women’s personal current accounts? As well as any data to analyse the phenomenon of financial exclusion of Women and girls, and their lack of protection against situations of economic and financial abuse?
It is now clear that gender inequalities in financial independence may be exacerbated by increasingly complex economic challenges, including rising inflation and energy prices and the related cost-of-living crisis, which have been shown to disproportionately affect Women.
Finally, the Report published on 6 May by the EIGE, the European Institute for Gender Equity, ‘Financial Independence and Gender Equality: Joining the Dots on Income, Wealth and Power’ sheds new light and offers answers and recommendations with data on why financial independence is crucial for all people and especially for Women.
A crucial collection of data and recommendations from the EIGE finally allows for a transformation not only in language but also in the substance of the actions and norms needed to ensure the financial independence and inclusion of Women. This research helps us to shed light on the terms and understand why, for example, Anglo-Saxon legislative systems have intervened in laws against domestic violence, a crime that is absent in Italy as a separate offence, and distinguishing aggravating circumstances for financial abuse or financial abuse.
And if not even recent judgments that emphasise the seriousness of the psychological effects of psychological and economic violence or the studies that note that victims of financial abuse in 77% of cases show mental health problems have accelerated the implementation of specific regulations on economic violence, this remains a very complex phenomenon with devious ways of manifesting itself, this is why it is essential to provide specific legislation, possibly in line with the community legislation that has shown a strong sensitivity to this phenomenon also in the recent DIRECTIVE (EU) 2024/1385 OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL of 14 May 2024 on combating violence against women and domestic violence, published in the Official Journal of the European Union on Friday 24 May 2024.
Thus, this report reinforces and outlines the implementation context by offering a multidimensional analysis of financial independence that is crucial to understanding its implications for the social system, also because it is seen as a precondition for economic independence, which is broader and has an impact on the family sphere, and by going beyond the domestic sphere alone by assessing how women and men are able to realise their aspirations on three dimensions: that of income, that of wealth and that of power and control. And it is already clear that closing gender gaps in care would not only lead to a fairer distribution of employment and income opportunities, but would also help to reduce gender gaps in wealth.
Once and for all, it is defined as a smaller proportion of women (19 %) than men (34 %) have a high level of financial literacy, which can exacerbate the gender gap in wealth. The situation we observe is that of a downward spiral where women who have access to fewer financial resources, due to widespread gender gaps, (in wages, career opportunities and consequently social security), will be less able to invest as they will have less chance of accessing top positions better paid and ultimately offer a direct confrontation with financial literacy issues. A working socialisation that in Italy is conditioned by one of the lowest female employment rates in Europe and that reduces the likelihood of a continuous experience of more complex economic and financial issues beyond ordinary household expenses, excluding them from choices concerning investments or complementary insurance and social security protection, to the detriment of their full self-determination and often also of minors who replicate dysfunctional financial behaviour.
Finally, the report outlines the direct correlation between lack of financial independence and economic violence with a devastating effect especially on migrant women and women with disabilities. The resulting European recommendations, if the Istanbul Convention, which came into force last October, was not enough, create a crucial basis for the EU Member States for forms of intervention that in Italy, the only country with a clear gender gap in financial and digital skills, are particularly urgent, starting with training and education for all ages to promote the promotion of financial knowledge and skills.
Among these Recommendations, which Italy will also have to implement, is the need to :
– Implement the legal standards of the Istanbul Convention to prevent and combat violence against women and domestic violence, including economic violence.
– Collect and communicate administrative data on economic violence.
– Conduct regular surveys on various forms of economic violence against women.
– Allocate funds for regular data collection and research on economic violence and its links to financial (in)dependence.
– Improve coordination between institutions in relation to data collection.
Making it clear once again if it was not already evident that delays in collecting gender data on economic violence represent a missed opportunity for the country’s productivity and the full financial inclusion of women.
This makes it necessary to work intensively at the government tables with the relevant institutions as we called for in the Women7 Communiqué for the G7 and that in the demands of civil society the issues of labour, economic justice and violence intersect. But it is not enough because the application of the new Directive for Consumer Credit is also another tile on the table of the legislator who sees in the example of some European countries as fundamental a plan of agreements with the Third Sector, as a winning system on the issues of consumer credit and over-indebtedness insolvencies with new forms of counselling of the ‘overall debt’ .
All these measures with a high social impact should make us reflect especially on the financial situation of families, 57% of which, according to Eurispes, cannot make it to the end of the month, but instead we accumulate delays and let the ‘financial influencers’ have a free hand to sell illusions in an unregulated system that correctly forces financial advisors to ‘patent’ and take qualifying exams but does not fully protect boys and girls from misleading advertising linked to speculative trading and ‘financial gambling’ as the new rampant digital ludopathies.
