A woman especially, if she have (sic) the misfortune of knowing anything, should conceal it as well as she can,” says Jane Austen in the narrator’s voice in Northanger Abbey. In a novel, where Austen’s heroine Catherine Morland loves reading and easily lets her imagination flow into newer and unknown territories, that was a tongue-in-cheek comment on Victorian morality and its ideas about women.
The Indian society, in large parts, mirrored the Victorian morality at the time. Eventually, education became a cornerstone for high-class, cultured women, but the household continued to be the natural boundary. An educated woman was expected to be a companion to her husband, make intelligent conversation, inculcate the right values in her children and run the household efficiently.
Fast forward to 2022. The motifs of women’s journey have changed and have evolved into new forms and patterns, but the texture of our traditional social fabric has remained the same in many ways. So, while women don’t need to hide their educational or professional acumen, like Catherine Morland was expected to, they haven’t been able to fully discard the weight of household duties, which remain primarily theirs. As a result, the proportion of homemakers among women is large in India.
The husbands help, in some cases, and even share, in fewer. But what is this sharing and helping all about? Is it just about ironing the kids’ clothes at night for a school day? Or does it also involve “shared” decision-making, where both play an equal role in choosing the next day’s menu and deciding if they should invest when the market corrects next? Are these roles inter-changing in keeping with the skills and interests of both spouses?
The road to gender equality remains long and arduous, but some women are already challenging the status quo. They are taking the financial reins firmly in their hands—making all investing and saving decisions and calling the shots as heads of households. In the process, they are also providing stability in the face of challenges. We spoke to women homemakers who oversee the household investment portfolios and single women who lead the household, while taking care of kids, or parents or both.
Scores of women wait to follow suit and claim their rightful share of the sky, but these signs are encouraging. While on that curb, it would do well to keep an eye on the Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC) IPO. With expectations of a high market capitalisation, riding on valuations, profit potential and other factors, LIC seems poised to make as big a mark on the market as it has made on household savings plans. Read how its lion’s market share can translate into a king-of-the-jungle market capitalisation.
That’s an offer that many may be eyeing but, in general, stock picking is not as simple as it sounds. Buying the stock of a company that’s getting splashed in latest ads and news may not always make sense. Our stock picking guide can help you deal with the basics before you make any such move. It’s better to be careful about investing as most of the times, it’s your hard-earned money that’s at stake.
In any case, staying alert and covering your bases is something that nature has taught us well in the last two years. Different people reacted differently to the pandemic and started looking at their goals—both life and money—from a different prism. Some realised the intransigence of life and made a conscious decision to reformat their professional lives, some moved to smaller cities to be close to their families and some realised how prudent financial planning can play a role in riding out at least a few uncertainties.
Nidhi Sinha
Editor, Outlook Money
nidhi@outlookindia.com