The growing economic gender divide by John Gilbert

Leave a Comment » | 571 views | 0 Comments » |

John Gilbert, business analyst from JGFR, discusses the growing economic gender divide.

Despite two glorious feel-good weekends in much of the UK this October, a sense of real unease over the state of the economy is growing.  Last week’s jobs figures were very worrying with the unemployment rate and numbers back at levels last seen in the mid-1990s. Only the intensive media ‘Fox –hunt’ prevented far more coverage of this summer’s jobs slump and of the expected growing job losses in the coming months.

One clear trend from an analysis of the labour market is of the much greater impact on women in in this economic downturn compared with the early 1990s. More women are losing jobs than men. A consequence of greater numbers of female job losses will be a bigger impact on spending, given that in many households women are the main managers of household finances.

Austerity Britain is changing the relationship between men and women in economic matters. The much debated public spending cuts and the favourable impact being reflected in the UK’s coveted AAA credit rating may impress the mainly male-dominated financial markets but have far less resonance with the growing numbers of networked women who regard  cuts in child benefit and in childcare and  the impact of cuts in education, health and social services as attacks on their values and lifestyles. Many will suffer both from being a victim of losing earnings from employment but also from benefit allowances.

Research from GfK NOP/JGFR highlights the gender gap that policy makers, politicians and marketers need to address.

Confidence – while overall confidence is down 10 points in the past year to recession levels, the gap between much weaker women’s confidence and men’s confidence has grown to a decade-high depressing the overall index

Inflation – women continue to be more involved with shopping and household finances and are more attuned to day-to-day price changes. Over the past year 49% of women believe prices have risen a lot compared to 38% of men. A higher proportion of women (21%) than men (13%) expect  consumer prices to rise more in the next 12 months.

Jobs –  more women (31%)  expect job losses to rise more sharply in the next 12 months than men (23%)

Spending – the impact of a higher misery score (inflation and unemployment expectations combined) of women, results in a lower spending confidence measure on major purchases of household goods (-65) compared to men (-54).

Cash deposits – more women are cutting back on making cash deposits suggesting they are more under financial pressure.  A year ago 32% of women compared to 35% of men intended making a cash deposit in the next 6 month; in the latest survey just 24% intend to do so (33% men).  Overall savings confidence among women is much lower than men’s,

While women are far more pessimistic than men about the future, and much less interested in investment, on the issue of banking, at the epicentre of this autumn’s financial uncertainty, women are more supportive of the banks than men. Fewer women believe in separating retail and investment banking and fewer are attracted to the idea of new high street banks.  Having more women at the helm in the major banking institutions may help to restore the trust and empathy that has been lacking.

More immediately, with the all-important run up to Christmas now well under way, getting women spending again is the major challenge for marketers and politicians.

Read more blog posts from John Gilbert.

Bookmark and Share

Posted: October 25th, 2011 | Author: will.armstrong | Filed under: Features, Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

Leave a Reply