In the midst of the ongoing financial crisis, women are rethinking how they do everything from celebrating friends’ milestones to planning families. In two separate consumer surveys, Credit Karma digs into the key changes women are making to adjust for the rise in cost of living and the nuanced shifts in behavior.
Both surveys, conducted in the first half of April of more than 2,000 U.S. adults who identify as women, considered today’s high rates of inflation finding that it’s simply “expensive to exist right now,” though especially difficult for women who earn an average of 16 percent less than men. The authors of the report stated that while many women express that “it’s nice to share the financial load with a partner,” not every women has a partner and not every woman wants one.
“The makeup of women’s financial lives has shifted, likely due to a shift in economic factors, like housing affordability and the rising cost of higher education,” said Courtney Alev, consumer financial advocate at Intuit Credit Karma. “As a result, women are no longer solely focused on getting married and starting families, but instead focused on building their careers and prioritizing debt repayment. At the same time, life is more expensive now and it’s holding some women back from prospering and serving as a major source of stress for others, especially single women who are stuck with 100 percent of the bill, 100 percent of the time.”
Courtney Alev, consumer financial advocate at Intuit Credit Karma.
According to the survey, 36 percent of women do not feel financially stable right now, jumping to 40 percent for single women and falling to 34 percent for coupled women. Nearly a quarter of women said they do not have money saved for an emergency (less for coupled women and more for single women). A fifth of single women also reported they still live with their parents, or other relatives, compared to just 7 percent of partnered women.
Delving into what the current cost of living means specifically for single women, the company found that nearly half of the survey’s single respondents find living on their single income is a major source of stress. More than 25 percent of single women said, “it’s too expensive to be single.”
When compared to couple friends, single women told Credit Karma they have a harder time budgeting for certain activities including vacations, dining out and entertainment. Moreover, 35 percent of single women said they have a hard time affording necessities like rent and groceries, among other bills. Almost 10 percent of women (17 percent of Gen Z women) said they have gone into debt to keep up.
Activities such as celebrating friends’ life milestones, including engagements, weddings and babies, were among the top costs that many women told the company have led to some resentment. Single Gen Z women stood out in the survey as “the most fed up” with almost 30 percent saying, “they’re sick of spending money on friends’ life milestones,” compared to 25 percent of Millennial women.
Notably, in July 2023 a similar report found that Gen Z and Millennials were losing friends over spending habits and were making an effort to make friends with similar incomes to avoid overspending.
When it comes to achieving their own financial milestones, many single women said they don’t believe it’s possible without a partner. Twenty-two percent of single women believe experiencing future financial milestones, including buying a home or retirement savings, will mean finding a partner. The sentiment jumps to 34 percent for single Gen Z women and 31 percent for single Millennial women. However, the majority (65 percent) said they do believe they can achieve these milestones on their own.
Importantly, the report points out that many coupled women do outearn their partners, as is the case for 33 percent of Gen Z women and 29 percent of Millennial women. And while being partnered does impact their spending, it looks differently for everyone. Nearly half of partnered women said that being in a relationship has helped them save money while 37 percent said being coupled causes them to spend more money than if they were single.
Expenses in mind, women are no longer subscribing to the milestone timeline of years past, both unable to and unwilling to let society’s expectations determine their paths. Forty percent of women (49 percent of currently single women) say they’re not following the societal timeline of getting married, buying a house and having kids. By generation, the sentiment was most true for Millennial women (45 percent) followed by 41 percent of Gen Z, 40 percent of Gen X and 34 percent of Baby Boomers.
As such priorities have shifted with women concentrating on their careers, paying down debt and traveling over getting married and buying a house. “Having fun” was also a key priority for women with 21 percent saying they are more interested in having fun than saving money — the trend was most notable among Gen Z women at 38 percent. Seventy percent of women also said it is important to have enough money to “treat themselves whenever they want” including paying for dinner with friends and shopping for new clothes.
For women who said they do want to get married, almost 20 percent said they wish to be a DINK (dual income, no kids). Across generations, Gen Z women were most interested in becoming a DINK at 32 percent, compared to 18 percent of Millennials, 19 percent of Gen X and 11 percent of Baby Boomers.
Unsurprisingly, the decision to have children in the future was tied heavily to finances for women. Alev said these concerns are valid, citing that an American couple’s expected expense was estimated at roughly $306,924 to raise a child born in November 2023.
Many Gen Z and Millennial women are shifting priorities away from set timelines for getting married and starting families.
Jose Calsina – stock.adobe.com
Within the survey, the company found that 46 percent of Millennial women who don’t have children want them in the future and 35 percent said they would be willing to start a family on their own, even given the financial responsibility. And 10 percent of Millennial women who want kids said they have already started actively prioritizing saving money for this purpose.
At the same time, for the 35 percent of Millennial women who said they do not want to have children in the future 40 percent cited not being able to afford it given not only the expense of raising a child but often the additional costs of conceiving a child.
“The past few decades have shown that societal norms don’t look the same as they used to, and Millennial women played a major role in that shift,” Alev said. “As a result, women today aren’t tethered to the timelines set by those before them, as many choose to prioritize their careers above being young mothers. In some cases, that means prolonging family planning until they become more established in their careers, while others don’t see children in their future at all. Regardless, both camps are highly influenced by money and the high costs associated with conceiving and raising children.”
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