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Financial Issues of Women

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Handbook of Consumer Finance Research

Abstract

Women face a broad range of financial issues. These can be categorized as follows: (1) women’s financial literacy is lower than men’s, but women are aware of the deficit and are more likely to seek professional financial advice; (2) women’s investment behavior is influenced by emotional and behavioral factors that can benefit or hurt investment outcomes; (3) women within couples are more involved in financial decisions when their age, education, and income are similar to their husbands’; (4) low-income women try to make ends meet by combining high-cost lending with less accessible mainstream financial products; (5) poverty among older women is particularly challenging, and adversely affects their mental and physical health; (6) beyond the western world, microfinance interventions have led to women’s empowerment and that empowerment has led to their assuming greater roles in economic decision-making.

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Acknowledgement

This research was supported by the Marie Curie International Incoming Fellowship within the 7th European Community Framework Programme (N° 330462).

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Correspondence to Cäzilia Loibl Ph.D. .

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Loibl, C., Hira, T.K. (2016). Financial Issues of Women. In: Xiao, J. (eds) Handbook of Consumer Finance Research. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-28887-1_16

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