Not working, depending on husband's money among reasons why women have less savings

SHAH ALAM - Not working and only expecting financial resources from the husband are among the factors why Malaysian women may have less savings than men.

Malaysian Women's Aspirations Organisation (Aswa) chairman Wan Azliana Wan Adnan said this is because on average, women choose to be full-time housewives after starting a family.

"I see these two things as the reason why women save less than men because their ability to save depends on the spending money given by their husbands.

"How can they (women) have a high amount of savings if they do not work and I think the issue of nafkah or expenses given by the husband to the wife who is not working also needs attention," she told Sinar on Friday.

She was commenting on the Malaysian RinggitPlus Financial Literacy Study (RMFLS) 2023 which found that 75 per cent of female respondents save less than RM500 a month compared to 66 per cent of males.

Through a statement on Thursday, RinggitPlus Chief Executive Officer Yuen Tuck Siew said the findings also showed that 69 per cent of female respondents could survive for less than three months with their savings compared to 64 per cent of men.

Commenting further, Wan Azliana said that the factor of discrimination against working women by employers was also the reason that the group was unable to save in large amounts.

She said the employers were free to choose not to employ women who were married and some were even employed at a lower salary scale than men.

"This situation occurs because married women will take more leave than men due to childbirth and so on.

"So, I see these are the factors that cause women to face difficulties in saving more," she said.

When asked about the methods that women could take to make future savings, she said, there were several ways including making safe investments and venture into online business.

"We understand that women, especially housewives, have many responsibilities in managing their families. So with a little extra spending money given by the husband, is used to invest in safe institutions.

"The same step can be taken by working women because there are many opportunities to increase income in line with the current technological progress because we can see there are wide range of online business through various social media platforms at the time," she said.

Wan Azliana added that women also need to be given serious exposure to the importance of having savings as a preparation for facing economic challenges in the future.