Women have overtaken men in filing for bankruptcy for the first time…
It may be time to rein in your spending, because a recent study by the Insolvency Service shows that more women than men have been filing for bankruptcy for the first time. Scarily, these numbers are particularly high with young people aged between 25 and 34.
32.8 per 10,000 young women, compared to just 24.8 per 10,000 young men in that age group filed for bankruptcy last year.
But why are so many more young women filing for bankruptcy and insolvency? Critics say the gender pay gap is a major factor - on average, women earn 80p for every pound earned by men. OK, so maybe reining in our spending isn't actually the problem here...
Wealth manager Philippa Gee says, 'With the gender pay gap, increased living costs and maternity benefits often tightened by employers, many women have to resort to loading their credit cards with debt.'
Dane Atkinson, entrepreneur and CEO of tech company SumAll recently admitted, 'Many times I've hired women at less [pay] than I've hired a man for similar roles… I would get rewarded from my shareholders and the board for doing a great job of hiring all those ladies at such less pay.'
Atkinson now has a transparent salary policy where his employees can view an online document that holds the salary information of everyone in his company.
The increase also being explained away as a result of more women using DROs (debt relief orders), used in cases where there is less than £15,000 of debt and no realistic hope of paying it off. In comparison, more men tend to have larger debts and file for traditional bankruptcy, though numbers for both genders have been falling across the board since 2009.
Patrick Connolly, a certified financial planner at Chase de Vere says, 'Many of the female bankruptcies, as with male bankruptcies, are simply down to irresponsible spending as they take advantage of easy credit and try to maintain a lifestyle which they cannot afford.'